His
bead
y-eyed gaze
traversed
her body, making her feel soiled and in need of a long hot shower.
He patted the spot next to him
, while tapping his belly with the
pudgy
fingers of his other hand
. “Won’t you join me, Sameya?”
As if
he truly
believed
she had
a choice.
Arrogant creatures and their idiocy
!
She would enjoy exposing his error.
The guard
led her to
the male,
whom she presumed was
Gryphon
,
and handed
the
length of
chain
to
the
man
.
“Sit.”
“Are you Gryphon?”
“Yes.” He yanked
,
and she went to the floor in front of him, her knees protesting the impact with the
marble floor.
“
But I prefer Master. At least for a time
. After I tire of you, Mondo here
”
—he flicked a hand with long fingernails at the guard who’d walked her in—“will have
the privilege of owning you.”
“You
’
r
e
confident of that outcome.”
“I know your secret weaknesses, siren. Rose petals and iron.” He gulped a finger of
liquor from a glass, his lewd gaze
navigating
her body once more
. “Did you remove the dildo in your ass?”
She ground her teeth together. “No.”
“I fingered you after you were down.”
Bile hit the back of her throat.
Violated when she couldn’t defend herself…he was a sick and twisted bastard. She’d
make sure he
writhed in agony
for that affront. “You’re soft. I’ll enjoy feasting on your pain.”
Griffin’s ate the agony of their victims. Everything began to slowly come together.
Sameya was a powerhouse of magic, a timerelic of power that’d survived countless generations,
the rise and fall of nations, all of that meant she’d last longer than his average
prey.
“Another siren gave up our secrets to get me out of the way
?
”
Gryphon
offered no reply, but she needed none. He
trailed a finger down her neck
,
and she flinched away
.
“I have a bit of sport for us to watch before I dine on you.”
At least twenty henchmen entered the room in a single file. They must expect a lot
of trouble out of her
…or someone
.
D
read morphed through her.
Gabriel was
wheeled in
first
, t
rapped in a
steel enclosure
in his tiger form
. H
e could barely move. Their eyes met and he snarled, ramming the lock with a shoulder
, knocking the crate about. T
he men pushing his crate
were caught off guard and tumbled to
the floor
amid
hollers and screams to get him under control
.
Gabriel continued to ram the door, but it
didn’t budge.
A curtain in the corner of the room was yanked down, exposing
Maximus.
Naked and b
ound to a cross
,
his back was littered with oozing lacerations. The bearer of that whip lifted
a
wormwood tipped
flog
and laid another set of wounds across the vampyr’s back.
Maximus jerked, but only a groan came from him.
Knowing he suffered caused her fingertips to sizzle and a buzzing to echo in her ears.
Sameya drenched the room in a serenade so potent it would’ve killed a young mystic.
As a result, s
everal of
Gryphon’s
henchmen dropped where they stood, dead before they hit the floor.
The one who wielded the
cat-o’-nine-tails
plummeted
to the floor
with a startled yelp after she pointed at him. She
turned toward Mondo, who was on his knees at the door sobbing. She’d met children
with more bravery. “Bring me the witch immediately.”
The remaining
men
were reaped without a glance in their direction
, the thuds of their dead bodies hitting the floor like dominoes
.
“How? You’re in iron.
And the Atlantian symbols etched in them are strong enchantment
s
.
” Nothing
Gryphon
could do now except follow her commands
,
and she could see the resignation in his eyes. He’d already accepted his death.
“Catch up on your history, Gryphon.” She smacked his cheek. “
Or get a siren old enough to know the truth of a timerelic’s vulnerabilities.
I’m too old for
the iron
to bother me.
As for the inscriptions…they’re my spell.
” Which meant someone high up in E’Neskha’s organization was responsible for this
treachery because none but the most trusted were aware of the etchings.
“The spell
can’t be used against me.
”
As she released the cuffs from her wrist
s
, she half-ran, half-walked toward her men. “Open the door,” she instructed the only
other
remaining survivor in the room.
The lock disengaged. Gabriel knocked the guard down and shifted out of his skin in
a sparkling array of lights. In the next breath, he had her in a bear hug that choked
her with tears at his obvious emotion.
“I’m okay,” she said as he
placed kisses along her face and pat
ted
her down at the same time. She captured his hands and brought them to her mouth.
She kissed his
blood-caked
knuckles. “Gabriel, I’m okay.”
He
crushed her against him, claiming her mouth in a kiss that could’ve
torched
Texas
with the heat coming off it.
When the lip-lock ended, he
whispered against her ear, “I want to mark you so bad, my tiger is almost feral with
the
need.”
“Gabriel, you’ve got to get it together. Maximus needs us.”
“I know.” He kissed her temple. “I know.”
And just that quickly, he snapped into command mode.
Sameya cracked the wormwood manacles on Maximus’s wrist and neck.
Working together,
s
he
and Gabriel
untied
their vampyr
and looped
his arms
over their shoulders
.
Kat entered the room
with Mondo trailing her
.
“
Blessed
Mother!” She rushed toward them. “He needs blood to heal properly.”
“I’ll sit over there”—
Gabriel
nodded at the chair near Gryphon, who watched everything with wide-eyed acceptance—“and
you both help him straddle me so he can imbibe directly from my vein.”
“You’ve already lost
a lot of
blood, Gabriel.
I can sense
the
tiredness of
your
tiger.
”
Sameya didn’t comprehend the problem. “I can command someone to offer their vein.”
“He’s too far gone.” Kat stared her straight in the eyes. “The only thing that’ll
bring
Maximus
back is the blood and connection of a mate.”
She peered at Gabriel over Maximus’
s
lolling head. “Will my blood work even though we’re not mated?”
“A mate is a mate, but you’ll have to open yourself to him and…
imitate the
mat
ing
.” She could tell by the
challenge
in Gabriel’s eyes he didn’t think she’d do it. And
asking her to take this step
was a huge sacrifice. It’d be
the start of
a real mating, a blending of the
ir
souls, just without the marking. What did a physical mark matter when her soul would
be forever connected to him?
In the end, there was no choice. She couldn’t allow him to die. The
idea of losing him terrified her
,
and she wouldn’t even contemplate the meaning of that at the moment
. “I’ll do it. Sit him down in the chair. I’ll straddle him.”
“He might resist at firs
t, Sameya.” Gabriel gently
settled Maximus into the chair beside Gryphon. “H
e has his pride
,
and forcing
you into
a mating isn’t
what either of us want
s
.”
“I’m rather persistent when I want to be.” She straddled
the vampyr’s
thighs and clasped his head between her hands, drawing his mouth to her throat.
“What about your serenade. How far does it reach?”
Gabriel smoothed his fingers through her hair.
She
comprehended
he needed to touch her, to soothe his tiger.
“Everyone in this hom
e attached to Gryphon is under my command.”
“Will your control weaken if you do?”
How much blood did Maximus need? “No.”
“I’ll watch your back anyway.” He kissed her forehead. “I love you, Sameya.”
Startled, she blinked at him. She opened her mouth to reply but nothing came out.
What’d she say to that? She knew nothing about the emotion. She’d loved
no one
in her life. She hadn’t even known her parents.
Instead of replying to Gabriel’s confession, she focused on helping Maximus.
“You’ll bite me, Maximus.” She bit his ear hard
enough
to
garner
his attention. “If you don’t bite me, I’ll leave you at the end of the month. I swear
it on Empress E’Neskha.”
“No
t
…leave,” he muttered against her throat.
“Then take me, vampyr.”
The scrap of his fangs against her throat made her moan. Funny she was excited about
this. His tongue swabbed her pulse and he groaned, his hands moving to her hips
, his grip tighter than she anticipated
.
“Damn you, bite me now.”
Cupping her ass, he lifted her slightly as he buried his fangs into her throat. Sameya
gasped at the rush of
sensation
. The suckles against her throat were like sucks to her clit. Maximus pulled her hips
down and thrust his up
ward
, impaling her. Her hand tightened in his hair and he held her motionless as he
ingested her blood.
“I didn’t warn you of that on purpose.” Gabriel flicked his knuckles along her cheek.
“Afraid you’d change your mind with the others present.”
She’d forgotten about everyone else. Damn these men had a way of making her forget
her surroundings.
Then she felt it, the mental link with him, like a lock clicking into place. Maximus’
s
thoughts weren’t open to her, but his emotions were raw. Fear that she’d leave him.
Joy at finding her.
Satisfaction
with the way she responded to them. Protective instincts.
D
evotion to her and Gabriel, he’d never stray. If he tried, she’d know.
His fangs left her throat and he
embraced her
, holding her motionless
against him as he worked on regulating his breathing
.
After a long while,
Maximus
finally
looked at her, his mouth parted and his fangs streaked with her blood.
He licked her throat before lifting
her
off his cock
and
settling
her on her feet.
Confused, she stared at him.
H
er throat tingled
where he’d bitten her
and she was a hair’s breadth away from coming.
“I won’t mate you like this.” Wincing, he retracted his fangs.
Why did she feel like he’d rejected her?
“It’s not p
ersonal, Sameya. You know I’d
—”
“I know, Maximus.” Not hanging around to hear any more, she pointed at Gryphon. “Follow
me.”