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Seize Her
by Elle Q. Sabine
Copyright 2019 by Elle Q. Sabine. All rights reserved. For permission, write to elleqsabine@gmail.com.
All rights reserved, do not reprint in paper or electronic form without prior permission of the author. This material is supplemental material to books in the series Vamp Hunters (beginning with Hunt Her, published July 2016), published by Totally Bound. By reading further, you are stating you are 18 years of age, or over.
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Vamp [vamp]: n. a seductive woman who uses her sensuality to exploit men; vb. to use feminine charms upon; seduce.
Unmitigated terror swept Ilse when black-garbed arms slid around her. One, attached to a hand encased in a tight black glove, covered her mouth. The other jerked her back against him. She screamed, but the sound was cut off in an unnatural absence of sound that echoed around her. Ilse tried to shake her head, but the man that held her gripped her even more tightly.
The terror turned into mindless panic. She struggled, even though it was a useless fight. The man who held her did so easily.
She’d always thought when violence entered her world, it would do so with a dramatic sound track, like at the movies. Instead, it was eerily – unnaturally – silent. Her captor wasn’t vicious, but firm and dogged. Even though she kicked at his shins and fought, he held onto her with the tenaciousness of a mule. Her arms were caught inside his, of course, but her hands should have been free to pound against his torso. Instead, they seemed to be pinned to her thighs, and she couldn’t move them.
The panic shifted, from mindless reaction to a shaking avalanche. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t cry out – and wild horror ripped through her when she realized his reaction to her panic attack was to move inside her brain and force the release of serotonin and gamma-amniobutyric acid. But her eyes opened, and she saw immediately that this creature who held her mind and body in his thrall was accompanied by two others. Both waited impatiently for her to calm, and both were garbed just as her captor.
“The anti-toxin for mamba snakes,” the second said shortly, pointing at her. “Where is it?”
She couldn’t answer, not with the man’s arm holding her head tightly against his chest and her mouth closed at the same time. She glared, unable to help the calming effects of her own neurotransmitters, even if they were working at the behest of her enemy. Still, her shock at being manhandled by a man with fucking psychic powers couldn’t stop her mind from locating the serum in the pharmaceutical room.
Her captor answered for her, proving he could read her mind, as well as manipulate it. In response, she shrieked inwardly and let out a stream of mental curses that would have done her naval-minded father – a career sailor – proud. Never mind he hadn’t been an American sailor – the Belgian Maritime Component of the Belgian Armed Forces were just as proud as the Americans when it came to cursing.
Despite the fact that the majority of her cursing had been in German and Dutch, his hold on her didn’t alter in the slightest. In fact, he stood stoically silent, holding her in place, until chaos erupted again in her lab. Three more black-garbed soldiers stormed in, followed by three naked – fully naked – men.
Ilse couldn’t help but stare at the display, at least until a guttural roar issued forth from the gut of one of the newcomers. Her gaze flew to him, and she nearly collapsed, finally grateful for the man who held her. It was only his strength that kept her on her feet.
The angry newcomer was a tall, black-haired, blue-eyed god of the male gender. He was no doubt a soldier, with his hair a short buzz over a perfectly shaped head. He seemed to be just as strong in appearance as the others, and was probably just over six feet tall, but his presence suddenly filled the room as dramatically as his voice.
Why couldn’t this masculine idol be one of the naked ones?
Without another word, he stalked to her and reached out with both of his hands, jerking her out of her captor’s arms. The man behind her jumped back, releasing her instantly and throwing himself against the wall of her lab. “General,” he gasped. “I didn’t know.”
“Now we both know,” her new captor returned, his voice hard and rasping. Ilse shuddered just from the roughness of it. “Get away from me before I do something I regret.”
With those words, the presence in her mind simply vanished, and Ilse know she could use her hands and her voice again. Her body had no power against her new captor, though. Instead of holding her back to his front, he lifted her against his chest, one hand under her bottom and the other on the back of her head and neck. Her face was pressed close into his neck. To her astonishment, the man who had first captured her fled for the pharm room, even as the other soldiers swarmed back into the main laboratory with packaged boxes in their hands.
Ilse blinked. Was this a drug bust, or a drug raid, or were these drug lords robbing her? Nothing made sense, especially not the three naked men behind the one who held her.
“Don’t fucking look at them,” he ordered, turning so she couldn’t. His mind slid into hers, but it wasn’t with the same invasiveness as her original nemesis. He was strong, yes, but his presence didn’t terrorize her. His mind felt as if he was complementing hers, nurturing hers, giving her strength.
That was bullshit, she preached to her own softening heart. He was holding her captive. “Let me down, you bastard,” she gasped out, stronger now that he was supporting her mind and her body. “What the fuck is wrong with you people?”
“General, this is the total stock of the anti-toxin Dean identified would work,” one of the dressed soldiers intervened. “Should we try apportation or –”
“Why in the fuck are you stealing snake bite anti-venom?” she shrieked. “It’s not like that will give you a high, you fools.” This time, as she screamed at them, she pounded her free fists against whatever part of the man she could reach. Her violence didn’t make a damn bit of difference.
“Because we have three victims of a mamba snake.” He spoke slowly, as if she was a child, a patronizing tone that instantly riled every woman Ilse knew. She had finally realized that all the men were looking to the one holding her for direction. He was obviously the operation’s commander, and they called him General.
Fuck, she didn’t know if these were truly soldiers or if they were criminals, but a mamba was a mamba, and they were clearly rushing to get the victims treatment.
“Where are they? In the University Hospital ER? And do you have the snake?” Ilse went into immediate response mode. Mamba snake bites were fatal if not treated, and there shouldn’t have been any of the species loose anywhere. They didn’t even have one in her laboratory, or at any nearby zoos. “The anti-venom has to be kept in a stable environment, it doesn’t transport well.” She spilled out the details of the required temperature and closed container required.
To her astonishment, they ignored her, or at least she thought they did. Then she realized that the soldiers had spread out to find coolers to transport the stuff. While she watched, mouth hanging open, they packed it efficiently and – what? – hung it around the necks of the naked men.
“Stop looking at their asses and junk,” the General ordered her, turning again so she couldn’t see them. But the slamming doors of the laboratory were clear enough. Three naked men had stolen her snake anti-venom, put it in coolers, hung it around their necks, and walked out of her laboratory.
“What the fuck is going on?” she demanded.
He pointed a finger at her. “Sleep,” he ordered. “We’ll talk when I’ve got you secured and situation is under control.”
“Sleep? Why would I –” she began, but then her eyes closed against her will and she slumped in his arms.
Ilse woke on a bed. It was a gradual awakening, and she rolled to the side, sighing into the pillow before her eyelids fluttered open. But Ilse jerked upright and leapt to her feet. She glanced down at herself, relieved to see her clothing was still in place. Her throat was dry, and her bladder clenched – she was going to have to find a bathroom before she felt safe. She prayed there would be a lock on the door.
At the thought, she patted her pockets, but her lab coat was gone and so was her phone. She glanced around, but there wasn’t an obvious source of technology that could manage an outgoing communication. No phone, no tablet, no computer.
The room was beautiful, though. It was rectangular with a tray ceiling, and four windows. She ran to one, and looked out onto a street that was unfamiliar, but the bedroom was clearly on the third floor of a row of townhouses just like the one she was in. Somewhere in the suburbs then. Ilse could make a sign and hang it in the window to get someone to help her, if nothing else. Or climb down – no, the windows didn’t open. She cursed again, but nobody heard her so it was a wasted effort. The street was empty, and there were very few vehicles present.
She sighed, looking back at the room. Beautiful, she thought again, then blinked. The walls were the palest shade of pastel lemon she could imagine, and the trim brilliant white. The floor was a hardwood of dark ebony color, with thick white area rugs to stand on. The drapes were sheer white gauze with a white eyelet overlay, and the light fixtures were matching antique Tiffany-style lamps and ceiling fixtures of yellow glass. In addition to the wide bed with its white duvet, there was an exquisite embroidered blanket of white and gold at the end of the bed, and various furniture upholstered in yellow velvet.
If this was a prison, it was the most exquisite one that Ilse could imagine.
Still, there wasn’t a desk, piece of paper or notebook to be seen. She opened all three drawers in both nightstands and didn’t even find a book, let alone anything useful in aiding her escape.
Frustrated, she stormed down the short corridor toward the wide door at the end. Of course it was locked. There were three other doors in the corridor. Two led to large closets, one empty. The third led to a luxurious bathroom the size of her bedroom and bathroom combined. Both the bathroom door and the separate door to the toilet had lock mechanisms, so she locked both and relieved herself, then searched the linen closet in the toilet and still couldn’t find anything helpful.
In the vanity between the two sinks, she found a pair of barber scissors that belonged to the bathroom’s owner. She drank three glasses of water from the cup on what was clearly his sink. The scissors didn’t help her escape, but the water did make her feel better. She marched into the occupied closet and cut little holes in every pair of trousers and uniform jacket. He was clearly some sort of military man, and he had been handsome as sin. No one would be offended if he had to go without clothing. She left all the scraps on the floor of his previously clean closet. If she couldn’t escape, she could make the man’s life miserable or at least admire him in his birthday suit. At the thought, she found his underwear in the overly organized closet and vandalized every pair of those as well.
She still hadn’t found a single writing utensil or communication device, so she went and banged on the door. The scissors didn’t help in taking the door off its hinges, but her yelling did actually bring a response. She heard the heavy steps approaching from beyond the door.
“Ilse, are you awake then?” he said, as he opened the door.
She didn’t wait, but jabbed him with the scissors as hard as she could.
He yelped, but reacted immediately, wrapping his arm around her and removing the scissors from her other hand. Blood spurted from his upper shoulder, but didn’t seem to impair his movement at all. He backed her past the door and back into the room, so she kicked him as hard as she could.
“Ilse,” he barked.
“Let me go,” she screamed, and he immediately dropped his hands, but backed up and slammed the door in her face, so fast she could barely see him move. “Let me go!” she screamed at him again.
“No,” he replied as a lock clearly engaged. “No, I can’t,” he reiterated, his voice eerily calm compared to her violent temper. “Tell me when you are ready to speak to me civilly.”
“Never,” she returned hotly.
“Never is a very long time in my world,” he answered more quietly. “Ilse, do you not want to understand this? Do you not want to know why you are here? Aren’t you hungry?”
Out of his sight, Ilse winced. “I am hungry,” she muttered.
“I heard that. If you can behave yourself, we can go down to the kitchen and I’ll prepare you a meal.”
“Fine,” she muttered. If she was out of the room maybe she could find a way to escape. “But don’t touch me.”
“All right, I won’t touch you.”
True to his word, he didn’t so much as put a single finger in her direction, but he did have her precede him down the stairs. Since he’d taken away the scissors, she didn’t have anything more damaging than her short fingernails to attack him, so she was docile as they descended. She sat at the island in his modern kitchen of granite countertops, white sleek cabinetry, and stainless steel appliances, watching as he efficiently chopped vegetables and mixed eggs. She waited, and planned, as he cooked her an omelet, plated it, and set it in front of her with a fork.
Ilse was not too proud to eat. She’d watched him cook the entire meal, from washing the vegetables to cracking the eggs, and believed he hadn’t drugged the food. So she took a bite while he rotated the bar stool beside her and sat in it, facing her.
“My name is Enna,” he said, still not making any attempt to touch her. She nodded, and took a second bite, considering him, and where he’d left the cutting board and knife on the counter, beside the sink. She was closer to it than he was. “Do you remember what happened in your lab?”
Ilse thought, sat the fork down, and replied. “Yes, all of it, I think.” She frowned at him. “But I’m not sure I believe what I remember.”
“It happened,” he said dryly. “There were naked warriors in your lab stealing pharmaceutical anti-venom. One of my warriors was in your head to keep you under control without physically harming you. I nearly lost my mind when I arrived and found them doing exactly what I’d ordered them to do. When I came in and countermanded all of my previous orders, they were shock but still adjusted to my new directives. But I doubt you understand why any of that was happening.”
Ilse pressed her lips together. “Not an inkling,” she confirmed. She took another bite of the omelet, wishing she wasn’t so hungry. She needed the calories, especially if she was going to be strong enough to physically fight him off. But it was a strike against her pride to sit there and calmly eat food he’d prepared for her. She didn’t want his kindness, didn’t want him to be considerate, or reasonable.
“Well, first of all, you need to know that the world as you know it – scientifically – isn’t exactly the full story of life in the universe.”
She raised a brow. “Are you telling me that you’re an alien?” she asked, trying not to sound mocking.
“Not exactly,” he sighed. He glanced around the kitchen. To her astonishment, a cabinet door opened, and a glass floated out of it and neatly sat itself down beside the refrigerator. The fridge door then opened, and a bottle of orange juice emerged. Her mouth opened as the cap twisted off, sat itself on the counter, and the orange juice container tipped and poured the glass half-full of the juice. She watched as the cap re-attached itself to the juice in mid-air, then went back to the refrigerator and the fridge door closed. Then the glass of orange juice came off the counter and floated over to her, setting itself down next to her place without spilling a single drop.
“But not an alien,” she whispered in confirmation. She didn’t touch the juice.
“There’s a perfectly scientific explanation,” he tried to reassure her. “Your science is just not advanced enough yet.” He cleared his throat. “My brain is more developed than yours,” he tried to explain.
Ilse backed away her chair away, panic re-emerging at the unexplainable – the impossible. She stumbled to her feet, taking up a position around the corner of the island from where he sat. “You are what, then?” she choked out. “A different species?”
“I started out virtually the same as you,” he confirmed. “But now I’m not. I was … I suppose you would say I had a gene therapy that changed me.”
“This is not a Marvel movie,” Ilse shot back. “You are not Captain America.”
“No, I’m a general, at least among my own people.” He smiled wryly, but she backed two steps away from the island, toward the sink. His joke wasn’t lost on her, but she was in no condition to find humor in it. The knife was sitting there on the cutting board, waiting for her. She just had to get to it, without alerting him.
“And what am I, then? A prisoner of war?” she demanded.
His face darkened, and he stood up, glaring at her. “You are special, you know. Not a prisoner, not a prize, not any damned thing other than Ilse, mate of Enna –”
“No!” she gasped, reaching behind her and finding the knife exactly where she’d expected it.
“Yes,” he insisted, standing and following her around the island, as if he couldn’t bear to be farther from her. “I know you are not ready, but you are – will eventually be – mine. My Vitam, my life blood, screams that you are the one, the only one, who complements my soul.”
Ilse watched in horror as fangs descended from his mouth as he stalked her. She knew her eyes were wide, shock overcoming her, but she couldn’t help it. All of her instincts demanded she protect herself. Her hands moved automatically, without conscious direction The kitchen knife was in her hand. She plunged it toward his left shoulder – the same place where the scissor injury should have been.
The knife connected, enough to have him grunting and hitting the floor. But it didn’t stab as deeply as she expected.
Still, Ilse didn’t wait to see if he was still ambulatory – she ran for stairs, looking for an unlocked door. She couldn’t find one. On the first floor, she banged on every exterior door and window she could find, but all were locked and clearly guarded by a security system that required a code or a fingerprint. She tried the common 1-2-3-4 combination but just got an angry buzz in return.
She did find a room on the ground floor at the rear of the townhouse, though, that made her feel better. The door locked from the inside. From an unlocked cabinet of a guest bedroom clearly set up as Enna’s office, she armed herself with a dagger and an armed tranquilizer gun. The other firearms did not have bullets, so she left those, but she’d been trained in the use of tranquilizer guns because of her work with wildlife.
And then she made herself a help sign and tried to work out where to put it.
Nothing on the first floor faced the street except a locked and armed garage door, so she vented her rage on his car by removing the caps on all four tire air valves and flushing them down the toilet in the office. She locked herself inside the office again. The room had an exterior set of double doors that faced a small yard with a high wall and a forest beyond that, but she couldn’t get them open or break the glass out, even by kicking or swinging a chair at the glass.
After a few hours of frustration, Ilse concluded she’d have to go back upstairs. Such an move risked another encounter with Enna, who had fangs and could do things with his brain that she could barely comprehend. She didn’t want that. But she couldn’t get into his computer or his tablet, and she couldn’t stay locked in his office forever. There was a bathroom and water, but no food to be had. She’d only had three or four bites of the omelet, and her stomach was rumbling. And maybe he was dead. She’d left him bleeding on the kitchen floor.
Ilse knew she was psyching herself up for the moment she unlocked the door and braved the next floor up, but she couldn’t see any alternatives. She had the basic layout of the townhouse in her mind now. If he was dead on the kitchen floor, she could put the sign in the living room window at the front of the townhouse on the second floor. Otherwise, she’d try to flee back to the third floor and the master bedroom. That door had a lock, though she had to assume he could force his way in. But maybe it would delay him long enough to post the sign in the window and get to the bathroom’s toilet enclosure, or at least one of the closets.
She put her ear to the office door to listen for him, but couldn’t hear anything. As quietly as possible, she disengaged the lock and peered out, but the foyer at the bottom of the stairs was empty. Almost holding her breath, she creeped up the stairs, listening after each one for any evidence she would find him.
He wasn’t on the floor of the kitchen. The kitchen, in fact, was pristine. It had been cleaned, the dishwasher was happily humming, and he wasn’t to be found in the living room. She hung her handwritten sign in the window behind the curtains, where he couldn’t see it by a casual look at the window, and considered what to do. There wasn’t anywhere on the second floor where she could safely lock herself away. Maybe he had left while she’d been locked in the office. Even if the wound she’d delivered had been shallow, surely he’d need medical care.
If that was the case, Ilse’s best bet was to be locked in the master bedroom again when he came home.
Unfortunately, when she finally braved the master bedroom, it wasn’t empty. He was seated on the velvet chaise, his phone in hand as he read. He looked up, completely calm, when she gasped and turned to run. “It won’t do you any good, you know,” he said quietly. “In addition to the traditional sort of security system you can’t overcome, one of my talents is shielding. I can easily shield myself when necessary, and expand it to every access point in the house.”
He was far enough away that Ilse felt confident enough to scoff. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Perhaps, but the sign you taped in the window downstairs is completely invisible to my neighbors – and they are all like me, anyway. Anyone who comes to the door will be checking on me, not you. They know I won’t hurt you.”
“I’m not going to succumb to you like some fucking femme fatale with Stockholm Syndrome,” Ilse erupted angrily.
“Probably not,” he acknowledged, blinking his eyes as he slipped his phone in his pocket. “I’m rather afraid I’ll have to bond us together first. I am not prepared to force it on you, and no, it doesn’t involve sex.”
Ilse felt the panic start to rise again as he approached her. She didn’t want to think about how firm he’d been, or how he’d smelled, when he’d held her before, in her office. She didn’t want him close enough for any behavior-altering pheromones coming from him to affect her senses. She almost shrieked, but instead whipped the tranquilizer gun from the back of her pants and aimed it at him.
“Go ahead, sweetheart,” he encouraged her, taking another step closer. “I promise not to hold it against you.”
Ilse hesitated, but he took two more steps closer and she fired.
It didn’t do a bit of good. As fast as lightning, faster than any human could move, he whipped his hand up and caught the dart before it could hit him. She stared, flabbergasted, before turning to flee as the mindless terror swept her again. She had to get away, couldn’t breathe, felt her heart palpitate in a strange irregular rhythm, felt her knees fail and she fell to the floor –
He was on her in an instant. This time, he didn’t give her a chance to escape. His fangs hit her shoulder through her shirt. She screamed, but it didn’t make a bit of difference. A second later he said directly into her mind, “I love your violent tendencies, and I adore you. I will not let you die simply from fright.”
Ilse shook to her soul, her panic turning to shock and a numbness she didn’t understand. Before she could react, he lifted his head, slipped two fingers into her mouth and ordered aloud, “Swallow.”
She did so instantly, realizing even as she did that she was swallowing his blood. Her instincts kicked in and she started to gag, but the damage was done.
His memories began pouring into her. She reached out and clung to him, quite literally overcome by the open floodgates of history and violence and family and science. Dimly, she felt him lift her into his arms, cradling her close to his chest. She didn’t fight – couldn’t fight – not even when he deposited her on the bed and drew a blanket over her, tucking it carefully around her limp frame.
Both were very still, and then he stroked a single finger over her cheek, so gentle that she her mind barely comprehended it. She did understand his words, though she didn’t understand why she did. He spoke them as a vow, and she impulsively pledged to remember them, though she couldn’t take in any more information right then, not even to translate them. “Tu fortitudo mea. Anima tua suscepit me. Ego protector tuus sum et sedes, Sequor, quocumque iret. Et hic est in universa creatura, Nunc et semper, Omnia tibi polliceor me, In defensionem corporis tui, Spiritus vester, et anima.”
Enna hadn’t locked the door behind him when he’d left the bedroom long minutes later. He’d made his vow and put her to sleep again, so that he’d have time to do what had to be done. He’d said the vow, and without her consent. Even so, he repeated the words to himself in the modern English they all used, again and again, a litany of promises he’d already broken. “You are my treasure. Your soul sustains me. I am your shield and your shelter, I follow wherever you might go. Here and in all creation, Now and forever more, I pledge to you all of me, In defense of your lifeblood, Your spirit, and your soul.”
He’d been nauseous by what he’d done. But as in all things, as in all times, he knew where to go. He’d made his way to his ground floor study, had called for his brother, Valor, and when that beloved sibling had arrived, Enna had fallen to his knees at Valor’s feet, and confessed his sin against his mate.
Valor had been forced by Tuatha law to take Enna into his custody. But he did so gently, so casually that Enna barely felt Valor’s hold on his own mind. To Enna’s relief, he had physically relocated his brother only as far as Enna’s own desk chair. Valor took the chair across the desk, one he had sat in many times, and simply said, “I have seen in your mind all that happened. She was on the verge of a psychic breakdown, and you did what had to be done to strengthen her mind and shield it from an imminent collapse. You even told her you would not let her die. We will wait and see how she perceives the world when she awakes, before any sort of justice is set.”
The waiting was an agony. Enna repeated his vow again and again. Although Valor’s mind was closed to him, he trusted his brother to not act prematurely or overreact. On the other hand, his mind and body could not be left free of Valor’s control. If it was, he’d be in Ilse’s head in a heartbeat and he’d convince her to consent by mental manipulation, instead of from her own free will.
By the fates, he wanted that woman with every cell of his body.
But he stayed in the chair, completely motionless, and waited.
Ilse woke slowly, her mind drifting through a bizarre miasma of facts and fantasy. She blinked, then realized she was back in the soothing confines of the lemon-and-yellow master bedroom of General Enna. This time, though, panic didn’t overcome her. Even when the damn man had bitten her, he hadn’t taken advantage. She was still dressed, though she needed a shower. She’d been covered up with the blanket at the end of the bed.
Knowledge shimmered through her – he hadn’t bitten her to feed, not this time. He’d bitten her in a panicked reaction to her mental breakdown. The general hadn’t had enough control over her mind to calm her, and that had been the problem all along. She had been too spooked to think clearly. But why had he given her even the little bit of his blood? It had been a shocking rush of knowledge.
He’d done it to explain, in the most direct way he could.
Now, her mind was calm and collected. She examined her own mind carefully, but he wasn’t there as he’d been before. Despite all that he’d said, all that he’d claimed that their souls and spirits were complements, he had withdrawn from her mind, so that she could think privately.
She didn’t know him, but she had all of his memory and knowledge. It would take her a lifetime of examining his memories to learn all of him, but what shone through in the glimpses she had of his incredibly long life were integrity, strength, intelligence and a deep sense of responsibility and duty that kept him dedicated to his clan and his family. There had been few women in his life, and with a stark sense of shock, Ilse realized he’d never had sex with one. That man – that hot man who burned with lust for her – was a virgin? He’d been alive for centuries, but had looked only. He’d been looking for her, for what had seemed like a hopeless eternity.
What wasn’t to be admired in a man like that?
When he’d found her, he’d been overwhelmed by the connection between them, reacting without thought or his usual strategic planning. He’d simply … seized her. His mind had locked on her and refused to let go. Like her, he’d been in a state of shock and hadn’t been able to reason or plan a better approach.
Tears came to her eyes. Could she simply now acquiesce and try to move forward with him? Abandon her current life? The University and her family would look for her, and it wasn’t fair to any of them for her to just simply disappear. But Enna would not countenance any separation between them, if she agreed to be his.
She shifted, noting a card propped on the bedside table. Reaching out, she retrieved it and read.
To my extraordinary vamp. By the time you wake, I will have surrendered to the custody of my brother and lord, the Master Valor. I have sinned against you by blood bonding us together without your consent. I ask not for forgiveness. He will judge my error and pronounce sentence. I will ask him to return you to your life without memory of me, so that you might live out your life in harmony with your world. The last twenty-four hours have been a gift to my soul that have made the unending centuries bearable. You were and are forever half of my soul and my spirit. Enna.
Ilse read the words twice before she fully comprehended what he had said. “NO!” she grated aloud. Loudly. Leaping off the bed, she found her shoes, and ran for the door. When she got to the ground floor, she wrenched at the front door of the townhouse, and was shocked when it opened without even a beep of the security system. Ilse stared at the door, dumbfounded, but then spun defensively when a step echoed on the tile behind her.
She knew from Enna’s memories that this man who appeared was Master Valor, the leader of Enna’s people and his brother. She knew she should approach him respectively, knew of the immense power in him that could overtake her mind and body and force her compliance for whatever purpose he had. But instead of doing any of those things, she blurted out, “Don’t take away my memories, and what have you done to him? Where is he?”
Valor’s stern demeanor softened a bit as he studied her. She almost blushed. Ilse knew she was disheveled and unwashed, in no fit state to be in the presence of someone who was empowered to be judge, jury and even executioner. But she held her ground and, with every fiber of her being, demanded he answer.
“You are as brash and assertive as he can be,” Valor murmured. He waved a hand behind him. “He’s in the office, waiting for your judgment. I defer my decision to you. If you accept his apology, he will be pardoned. If not, I will be forced to make a decision that will forever cause harm to my heart and my people, and our collective futures.”
Ilse raised her brows, but she didn’t reply. She brushed past him instead, stopping abruptly in the office doorway.
They stared at one another, but Enna did not rise from the chair behind his desk. She suddenly understood how he had known they were destined to share the same future. Something surged inside her body, an awareness of him that couldn’t be denied. Vitam, her mind whispered. Lifeblood.
But she couldn’t reach his mind, and he wasn’t in her mind, and he didn’t move. “Why?” she asked.
“I couldn’t bear to see you broken,” he answered, understanding her question. “You have to be whole, no matter the cost.”
She stepped closer, but he still didn’t move, not even when she stepped beside him and leaned against the desk. He turned his head to look at her, but otherwise remained still. “I’m not ready for a full-time relationship,” she said carefully. “I have responsibilities, duties. I can’t just disappear from the world. Can you work with me on a reasonable transition?”
He nodded, eyes still on her. “I am your shield and your shelter, I follow wherever you might go.”
The words rang with truth and conviction, as though they were a pledge. Ilse almost started as she realized they were a guarantee – they’d been part of the words he’d vowed to her earlier. “And sex, what about sex?”
“When you want, how you want,” he said, the words lower. Thicker, she thought, as though he would struggle with that promise. “You are my treasure,” he added, as though it was an explanation she’d understand.
Ilse smiled. He still hadn’t come into her mind as he had the day before. They were still separated, in a totally normal human way, but not in a way that the Vampire before her found natural. She reached out a hand and stroked his jaw. “And blood?”
“Only with your permission, if you ask. There are other sources—”
“No other women,” she interrupted.
“No, no. Not other women. Never.”
Ilse nodded. “I know, you have never,” she whispered, putting the tip of her index finger to his bottom lip.
He blinked, almost blushed.
“I rather like that I’d be the only one. It makes me feel… valued,” she added.
“Treasured, forever,” he said again.
“Treasured,” she repeated, considering him. His hands were still on his thighs. It was apparent she’d have to make the first move. She examined his face first, admiring the strong jaw and well-formed, straight nose set between two dark eyes with heavy eyebrows. It was a visage that offered safety and security, as well as adoration. “I’m going to kiss you now. Is that all right?”
A groan rumbled through him. “Do you forgive me?” he asked.
She lowered her head until their lips were a mere centimeter apart. “Yes,” she whispered, and pressed her lips to his.
The earth rocked beneath her as he suddenly shifted and reached for her, drawing her down to sit on his lap. The kiss didn’t break, but their brains connected. Conscientia, he breathed into her mind. It wasn’t invasive, like she’d thought it would be, but the wrapping of his thoughts around hers until she knew with absolute certainty that he would always be there, supporting her and uplifting her.
She lifted her hands and wrapped them around his neck, holding him close as another sensation flooded her. Her entire body shuddered as his soul poured into her, wiping out a loneliness she’d always suppressed. Anima, he whispered against her lips.
Then, to her surprise, he lifted his head and looked at the door. Valor stood there, watching them, a small smile on his otherwise stern face.
“My lord, with your permission –”
“You are free, General,” the man decreed. “Keep your promises and you will stay that way. Also, you’ll need to replace your wardrobe.”
Enna’s eyebrows lowered and he looked at Ilse. “What happened?”
She attempted to look very innocent. Valor rolled his eyes and turned to stride away.
“Ilse?” he asked, then growled low in his throat as he clearly found the memory in her mind.
“You said you like my violent tendencies,” she replied. Then she kissed him again, and he let her distract him. They’d discuss her vandalism later. Much, much later.
Elle Q. Sabine 