Caitlyn

Caitlyn had drifted into sleep not long after Bass had beckoned her to their marital bed, despite having tried relentlessly to stay awake for fear he would visit her again. The demon had taken to visiting her in her dreams more frequently, where her resolve seemed to be weakened against his seductions. The last few nights, Caitlyn managed to stay awake and thwart his invasion of her dreams, but the strain of her pregnancy began to wear on her. As soon as Bass had placed a loving arm around her waist, his hand placed on her stomach, she had fallen asleep, unable to battle the tiredness that weighed down on her.

Now, she stood in his dream world, ablaze with candles and roses, while she tried to rouse herself from sleep. Dressed in a midnight blue slip, her hair pinned up off her neck just as he liked it, Caitlyn glanced around the windowless room, trying to figure out a way out.

For the response her body gave when this vampire was around was enough to make her feel ever so guilty, her stolen dreams bleeding into day. She became increasingly quiet around Bass, and he had begun to notice. He didn’t say anything, her husband, but he was more observant than he let on.

A hand snaked around her neck, wrapping his fingers around her throat, his other hand pulling her body flush against his, his hand where Bass’ had been in the real world. She could feel the warmth of skin against her neck as he leaned in to inhale her scent.

“You always smell of roses, my dear. Every single time I catch a whiff, my body ignites for you.”

He licked the underside of her jaw, and Caitlyn shuddered, though she was not sure if it was in disgust or due to the fact her entire body craved his touch.

“Why do you resist me, my rose? Imagine the pleasure we could drown in, if only you would say yes. Imagine the worlds we could rule if you agreed to be my queen. We could do so much, you and me. Say yes, become my vampire queen, and I will spare your husband and child.”

Caitlyn tried to turn, but his grip on her tightened, both around her throat and around her waist. His arousal pressed against her. Traitorous thoughts raced through her mind, and Caitlyn wondered what it would be like to have him inside her, to have his mouth on her flesh and hers on his. Would he feel different from her husband, the only man she had given her body to?

A tear slipped free and ran down her cheek. She should not be thinking this. Her loyalty and her love belonged to Sebastian.

But this man—this monster—must be projecting into her mind, making her believe that she wanted him as much as he seemed to want her.

“I will never say yes to you. I will never be yours. I love my husband, and I love my children. You will never have me unless by force. There will be no day I consent to being a vampire, and I would never willing become your queen.”

Caitlyn felt it when his leash on his anger pulled taut, as his hand reached under the short hem of the blue slip and cupped her mound. Loosening his grip on her neck, the nightmare in her dreams tilted her neck to the side as he said in a tone as sharp and as deadly as he was.

“I will have you. They say obsession is not good for someone like me, who has lived more years than you can imagine. But you, my rose, are an obsession I would kill for, and to have you in my arms while you are awake is all I think about. Make no mistakes, you will be mine, and I will take everything you love from you unless you say yes to me.”

“My answer will always be no.” Her voice held firm and Caitlyn felt power in those words for the first time in months.

A growl rumbled in his throat as he began to caress her with his fingers. Caitlyn felt his lips on the curve of her neck, and then a sharp pain as he sank his fangs into her neck. He drank his fill of her as he touched her in such an intimate manner, Caitlyn struggled to contain the tears.

When he was finished, and satisfied that her body had reacted in the way he expected, he whirled Caitlyn around so she faced him. His hands went to the side of her face, and in his, she saw a monster personified. Caitlyn’s own blood dripped from his fangs. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her lips, and she tasted her own blood.

“I promise I will be the only man you need in your life. You will come to crave me as I crave you. You will crawl on your knees and beg me, my rose, beg me to be mine. And then I’ll take you, over and over until my name is the only one on your lips.”

As Caitlyn felt herself waken, he sank his fangs into her neck again and she let loose a scream that could shatter glass as much as the sound shattered her heart.

Caitlyn jerked awake. For a second she forgot where she was as she realized the scream from the dream memory had followed her into her waking moments. Strong arms lifted her from her seat, and she batted them away. Panic flared inside her as fight or flight took over and she assessed a means to escape.

“Shh, it’s okay, Cait. You’re safe.”

Donnie.

Casting her eyes in Donnie’s direction, Caitlyn found her calm in his eyes, and that sated the overwhelming panic in her veins. The hum of the plane’s engine reminded her they were mid-flight. Caitlyn came back to herself, seated in Donnie’s lap, his hands planted firmly on her hips, her legs thrown over the side of the aeroplane’s seat.

When he sensed that she was calm enough, Donnie brought one of his hands up and ran it through her hair. Embarrassed by what he may or may not have seen in her mind, she tried to shift off his lap, but he stopped her.

“There is nothing you could say, nothing you can remember, that would cause me to stop holding you like this. You never have to be embarrassed of your past, Cait. Not with me.”

Caitlyn peered up at him under heavy lashes. This man, who held her night after night, without so much as uttering a word for almost twenty years, he deserved the truth. From now on, Donnie deserved only the truth from her lips.

“I am ashamed of the things he made me feel. I am ashamed of what you see when I cannot shield my memories from you. You put me on this pedestal as an avenging warrior who could slay dragons, and part of me hates for you to see exactly how far from that image I am.”

His gaze never wavered, his eyes locked on hers. “I met you while I was dying in an alley after I had been kicked to death for being an idiot and you still saw something in me to save me. You will always be that badass woman clad in leather who brought me to life even in death.”

Her instincts told her to brush him off, to protect him from the inevitable war that was looming down on them, but Caitlyn leaned into him and brushed her lips against the stubble on his jaw. His grip on her hip relaxed, but he left his hands where they were, his right hand still entangled in her hair. Donnie played with her curls as he gave her his lopsided smile, the one that caused her stomach to flip-flop.

“Tell me something true, Donnie. Tell me something that only you and I would know.”

Caitlyn leaned her head against his chest, closing her eyes as he cleared his throat. His hand continued to play with her hair. “When I first left the orphanage, having got a place on the Munster under twenty-one team, I rented this dingy little apartment with money I made as a bouncer. It had rats living in the wall, hot water only every other day, and sometimes I had no electricity. But it was mine, you know. The first thing that had been mine in a very long time.”

Caitlyn traced her palms up his stomach and chest, pausing when his chest rumbled.

“I played my first match and it was epic. I felt part of something bigger and I was Donnie O’Carroll, up and coming star, not Donnie O’Carroll, bastard son that nobody wanted.” Donnie’s words sounded thick with emotion as he continued. “Then one night, after a fucking tough match, the coach brought me into the clubhouse to introduce me to sponsors and I came face to face with my grandfather.”

Surprise coursed through Caitlyn as she gingerly traced her palms in a soothing way on his chest. Donnie had never spoken much about his mother, or his extended family, yet Caitlyn was well aware of where his bloodline came from. And Caitlyn had felt anger like no other for the man who had shunned Donnie, and his poor mother.

“I looked so damn like him, it was scary. Same stubborn jaw line, same pursed lips, even the same forehead. Standing face to face with him, and with everyone suddenly aware of the striking resemblance, I felt numb. He shook my hand and said, ‘Good game, son.’ And I wanted to punch him in the face so bad. But I swallowed my anger and grasped his hand and thanked him.”

“It must have been a terrible thing, to be faced with one of the many variants as to how you lost your mother, and not act. I am not sure I could have stayed silent.”

Resting his chin on top of her head, Donnie went on with his story. “It was the first time I drank myself to oblivion to forget. First time I punched a wall and broke my knuckles. The next night, I stood on the edge of his property and contemplated strolling up to the house, knocking on the door, and giving him a piece of my mind for being such a shite dad, but the front door opened, and I couldn’t breathe. This woman came out the door with her children and husband in a fancy suit. She smiled as she ushered her children into the car as my grandfather waved them off. As the car drove past me, the woman looked me dead in the eye and in her expression, I saw recognition. She knew who I was, and she just drove on by.”

The sadness in his tone chipped away another icicle from her cold heart. For all she had witnessed, for all that was done to her, and all that Caitlyn had lost, perhaps she never considered that Donnie too had been dealt a bad hand in this life.

“It is their loss, Donnie, and our gain. Despite my actions all these years, I have always been thankful to have you as part of our family. My family.”

Caitlyn raised her chin to look up at Donnie. His lips came down to meet hers and he kissed her slowly, a lazy, tempting sort of kiss that held the promise of things to come. As Donnie deepened the kiss, a chime rang out, notifying them that they were about to descend. Caitlyn made to take her own seat once more, yet Donnie held her firmly in place.

“We’re already dead, sweetheart. A little plane crash won’t do us much harm.”

With a light chuckle, Caitlyn stayed put as the plane hit the tarmac with a little bump. Once the plane taxied into the private hangar at Cork Airport, Caitlyn rose and collected her satchel from the seat across the way before she stopped to look back at Donnie.

The vampire had a grin on his handsome face. “Next time we fly, you and I are joining the mile-high club.”

“If we make it through this, I would like a vacation on a beach where I can walk across the sand under the midnight sky and dip my toes into the sea. Promise me this vacation, and I will partake in your mile-high club, oui?”

With a grin that could only be described as sexy as sin, Donnie gave her a quick peck. “Deal.”

He held out his hand and Caitlyn hesitated for only a moment before she slid her hand into his. Donnie led them out of the aeroplane and down the steel steps. In the private hangar, they were shielded from the wind that howled outside, and as rain danced upon the roof, Caitlyn sensed they were not alone.

Chester Birmingham sat on a tool bench off to the side, one leg resting on his other knee, his hands folded in his lap as he inclined his head at Caitlyn, two big and burly security guards standing at either side of him. Chester, who had once spent a decade at her sire’s court, knew the blackest parts of Caitlyn’s soul, had witnessed her at her worst, and perhaps that was why she despised the vampire.

Caitlyn, on instinct, tried to remove her hand from Donnie’s, yet he refused to loosen his grasp. Lifting his eyebrows, Donnie shook his head.

“Everything’s changed now, Cait. We do this together or not at all.”

Striding forward, they stood in front of Chester as a united front. Chester gave Caitlyn an approving smile even as he roamed his eyes over Donnie. “About damn time, Lady Hardi. I was afraid you might never thaw enough to realize what you had.”

“What are you doing here, Chester?”

Donnie slipped his arm around her waist, indicating to the other vampire that Caitlyn was indeed his. This new development in their relationship would bring out possessive tendencies in both of them, and she feared this might lead to Donnie’s downfall when he came face to face with the man who wanted her to be his, but she would never be his.

“I have come with sombre news, Caitlyn. But I assume since you have arrived back on Irish soil, you are aware he is here also?”

“I am aware and will work to rectify that as soon as I find out why you are here.”

Chester pushed himself off the bench and strode back and forth. “Did you know, Caitlyn that I tried to bid for your freedom and that’s why I was sent away from Paris?”

Caitlyn blinked in astonishment. “What do you mean?”

“I had heard many things, you see, about the king’s rebellious assassin who happened to be more beautiful than the rarest of diamonds. I came to Paris and witnessed you chained and bound like a dog by his throne, and it sickened me. You treat treasures with care and attention, you do not try and break their spirit.”

A growl pried its way from Donnie’s lips, and Caitlyn patted his cheek in rebuff. “Hush, Chester is speaking.”

Donnie gave her an amused snort, as if he knew Caitlyn had very little interest in Chester’s words.

“As I was saying”—Chester sighed, with a wave of his hand—“I went to the king, who was aware of my love of collecting the rare and unique, asking him to release you into my care, but his words chilled me to the bone. I was advised that, ‘My queen and I will never be parted and anyone who tried to separate us will meet my wrath tenfold’. There was this look in his eyes that confirmed that, where you were concerned, he would tear apart the world until everything had been decimated, leaving only you and him in this world.”

Caitlyn brushed a strand of hair from her face, simply for something to do as she was unsure of how to process this information. Chester came to stand in front of her, mindful to stay out of her personal space.

“Caitlyn, I do not tell you this because it will mend the animosity between us. I tell you this because I was once a vampire chained to a master. And now, he has another young soul in his clutches.”

“He told Caitlyn he had found another hunter. Is she here?” Donnie queried.

“Yes, and his obsession with you has gone too far.”

Chester beckoned one of his security men forward, and he handed a tablet to Chester, who held it up for Caitlyn and Donnie to watch as he pressed play. The security footage showed a young woman in Chester’s club as she attacked Melanie with a scythe having just taken Chester’s bodyguard down in mere seconds. Caitlyn gasped as Melanie dodged the blade and the young girl faced the camera.

“Mon Dieu, Jessamine?” Her words came out in a hush, but Caitlyn felt as if the ground was being ripped from beneath her.

“Oh, my lady, I’m sorry. That young woman is not your daughter. But she is blood kin.”

Caitlyn could not bring herself to speak or take her eyes from the screen that was now paused on the young woman’s face. No more than seventeen, the girl could have been her twin. And the smile on her face reminded Caitlyn of the smile she bore when she herself had taken a kill.

“Who is she?” Donnie demanded, asking the question Caitlyn could not as the hope that her baby girl had been alive shrivelled.

“She is your great, great, grandniece. When you were a teenager, your father had a secret relationship with a woman and they had a child together. I managed to gather some facts about the boy, your brother. That information is yours and has been delivered to your home. Her name is Kenzie Blake and he has blood bound her.”

It was one of the vampires’ most taboo things, never to allow a human to drink your blood unless they were for changing. And now the monster who had been a noose around her neck for centuries had addicted her last remaining family member to his blood. Caitlyn could not stand for this.

“There are those who will stand with you, Caitlyn. Say the word and we will be there. But, at the moment, his claim to you stands. As your sire, it is his right. However, I have spoken with Marcel, and we have a way around his claim to you.”

Marcel. She should have known that her friend would not let sleeping dogs lie.

“What do you have in mind?” Caitlyn asked, unable to stop the hope from projecting into her voice.

“We vampires love our laws and we work heartily to abide by most of them. Yet there are always loopholes. Marcel read through the old scrolls held deep in the Catacombs and discovered one passage. There is one law and one law only that can circumvent the sire ownership claim.”