Kissed by a Dark Prince (Volume 1) Read online

  She arched backwards and cried out her release. The feel of her quivering around him pulled him over the edge. He growled as he grasped her hips, slammed her down onto him, and spilled himself, pleasure rushing through his veins and stealing his senses. He breathed hard, trying to bring himself down, his thighs trembling.

  Loren didn’t want to open his eyes.

  He didn’t want to witness the result of the erotic acts of his dreams becoming fantasies that invaded his waking hours too.

  Loren peeled his hand away from his still-throbbing length, reached under the water and pulled the chain on the large stone plugging the bottom. The water immediately began to rush down the drain. He stepped out of the pool, dried himself off with a square of thick purple cloth and growled at his lack of self-control.

  He padded silently across the dark stone floor to the elegant wardrobes lining the wall of his bedroom, drying his hair at the same time. All eight doors were black wood decorated with a beautiful inlay made of precious stones and shells, depicting dragons and his kind, living in harmony with all the kingdoms. Life had been like that once, thousands of years ago. Now, many of the demon kingdoms wanted him dead, blaming him and his people for his brother’s ruthless attacks on their villages.

  Only the first and second demon kingdoms kept the other five from razing his lands and murdering his people. He had signed a peace treaty with them a thousand years ago. The kingdoms didn’t tolerate any individual demon from outside their realm passing through it without permission, let alone an army.

  He took a pair of black tight trousers from the stack and slipped them on, fastening them over his hips, and then jammed his bare feet into his black leather riding boots.

  His markings flared, a hot shivery feeling that always made him tense. They had done that too often since he had taken blood from the female, unsettling him.

  It wasn’t the only anomaly.

  He wasn’t healing as quickly as he should have either. It had been two days. His wounds should be gone by now, but they lingered, and he felt weaker than usual. His brother’s attack had been severe, but he had taken blood from the female and had drunk stored blood since returning to his world. He had eaten too, devouring the plates of nourishing vegetables and fruits that Bleu had pressed him to consume even when he hadn’t felt hungry. He should have healed by yesterday.

  Perhaps he needed more blood.

  Loren raked his fingers through his damp black hair and crossed the expansive bedroom. Daylight flowed in through the tall arched windows lining the wall to his right, where his bed was. Someone had been in while he had been resting and opened the twin arched doors that led onto his balcony. A breeze swept in through them, tousling the sheer blue curtains, carrying the scent of flowers.

  He stopped at the long black low cabinet that lined the shorter side of his bedroom and opened one of the doors. Someone had topped up the icebox too. The small triangular metal containers of blood in the dark stone box smelled faintly of Bleu. Loren smiled to himself and took one of the canisters out.

  Bleu had been livid with him when he had come to take him from the female doctor’s laboratory. Loren had received more than an earful. Bleu had practically scolded him, sounding much like the mother Loren had lost almost five thousand years ago.

  His second in command had never learned how to express his feelings. Whenever he was concerned, it came out as angry. Loren appreciated his friend’s concern though, and that he had managed to track him to the mortal world before the humans had, well, he still wasn’t sure what their intention had been.

  Studying him.

  The female had said she desired to study him.

  She had desired to help him.

  Loren groaned at the memory of what he had done after that. He had bitten her. He had felt weak and shaky, on the verge of passing out from the pain of his injuries. It had been instinct. She had smelled divine and had been so close to him, so warm and beautiful. He hadn’t been able to stop himself.

  He pulled the cap off the canister and swiftly gulped the contents down. He closed the cabinet door and set the empty canister down on the top, and walked across the room, passing his bed and heading for the double doors beyond them that stretched twenty feet high. The light blue fabric caressed his bare torso as he moved through the curtains. The blood would kick in soon and then he would feel better.

  His stomach cramped, pain vibrating through his body. He shot a hand out and grasped the door to his left, clutching it for support. Something was wrong. He should be growing stronger but he felt as though he was getting weaker.

  Loren’s eyes shot wide and he held his stomach, fighting a wave of nausea.

  Cold fingers danced down his spine, chilling his blood in his veins.

  The female was more than a source of sustenance. She was different. Not just a normal human. Did she know it? Did Vail?

  Loren had a terrible feeling that his brother knew.

  Ki’ara.

  His knees weakened. She couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible that the human doctor was his fated female. His ki’ara.

  Loren growled, his frustration getting the better of him. He had wanted to find his ki’ara for almost fifty centuries but he didn’t need this now and he certainly didn’t need her to be a member of some sort of demon-hunting organisation.

  Icy claws drifted down his back again and curled around his heart.

  He feared that it wasn’t fate that had brought him together with his eternal mate now.

  It was his brother.

  He needed to know exactly what had happened the night he had met her.

  Loren pushed away from the door and stumbled across the room, aiming for the bed. He had to be careful though. If he was right, and he had bonded the female to him, returning to her might not be a wise move.

  Bonded males could become extremely aggressive and dangerous in the presence of their female.

  Vail was proof of that.

  The completed bond with the dark witch had changed him and Loren felt certain that it was responsible for his brother’s madness and thirst for violence. If he had taken the first step in binding himself to the female doctor, he couldn’t afford to let it change him as it had changed his younger brother. He could never complete it, no matter how long he had waited for his ki’ara. The fate of his people rested on his shoulders.

  He needed to find a way to shatter the fragile bond.

  If she was his ki’ara.

  There was one way of finding out.

  If she were, he would be able to use the bond between them to locate her. His knees hit the mattress and he collapsed on his front and rolled onto his back.

  Loren closed his eyes and focused, turning his thoughts inwards, towards the female and her blood. He found a slender thread of her within him and held on to it, using his psychic abilities to enhance it, until it grew into a thicker ribbon of colours that swirled like his markings, iridescent and beautiful. His breathing grew laboured, the strength it took to use his abilities weakening him further. A room shimmered into focus in his mind, a place with cream walls and soft brown furniture, and technology he had never seen before.

  The female walked into view, dressed in her long white coat and dark tight trousers beneath them, her chestnut hair twirled into a knot at the back of her head.

  Loren stood and willed his personal portal to appear. Violet and blue light chased over his body, outlining it, and he commanded it to take him to the female.

  He appeared behind her in her small apartment. He had been to this building before. It smelled familiar. She lived in the place where she worked.

  He had wanted to speak with her here, where familiar things would surround her and she wouldn’t feel threatened, but he couldn’t risk her raising the alarm.

  Loren grabbed her from behind and covered her mouth with his hand. She instantly began wriggling in his arms, rubbing her backside against his groin, reigniting the desire he had barely managed to leash back in his bathing room. He grou
nd his teeth together and caged her against his body, and willed himself to return to the portal in his room.

  The moment his rooms appeared around him, he released her and she turned on her heel and smashed her fist into his mouth.

  Loren stumbled and fell on his backside, the impact with the cold stone jarring his spine.

  His female stood over him, a fiery glow in her dark eyes, her lips compressed into a thin line of fury.

  She was beautiful.

  But she could never be his.

  No matter how long he had waited for her, had dreamed of having his ki’ara, he had to do the right thing for a change. He had to place his people first and he had to defeat his brother.

  There was only one way he would be strong enough to battle and kill Vail.

  He looked up at the female towering over him, his heart beating in synchronisation with hers, his body weakened by their incomplete connection.

  He had to find a way to break their bond and let her go.

  He had to sacrifice his dreams.

  CHAPTER 3

  Olivia’s knuckles burned.

  The man she had planted on his backside didn’t look as though she had dealt much damage with her blow though. She had the feeling she had caused herself more pain than she had inflicted on him. She stood over him, letting him see the full extent of her anger in her eyes. It was a little over two days since he had tried to take a chunk out of her throat and her fury over it hadn’t dropped from a boil to a simmer. The twin wounds on her neck were still sore, irritating her, a constant reminder of what he had done.

  She had thought about how this meeting would go many times during the course of the past fifty hours, considering all the scenarios, but she had never once imagined it would actually happen and she would see him again.

  She had definitely never imagined he would kidnap her from her apartment.

  Where the hell was she?

  Her gaze darted between him and the room, trying to take it all in without giving him a chance to attack her unawares.

  If he tried anything funny, she was aiming lower and with her foot. He was anatomically similar to a human male and that meant she could deal him a blow he would definitely feel, all without causing herself a single ounce of pain.

  The room around her was dark and grim, the walls and floor made of stone that verged on black, and the ceiling made up of a rich sort of timber. The arched windows at intervals along the wall to her right and the tall arched door a few metres behind her on the same wall let in a large amount of light though. The world outside was bright. Far brighter than it should have been. He had taken her in the dead of night. Were they on the other side of the world now?

  The man picked himself up off the floor and she scooted back a step, brandishing her fists in front of her. He cocked an eyebrow at her and rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand, his purple eyes darkening. She knew that look. She had pissed him off. Not what she had aimed to do, but it was satisfying nonetheless.

  “You have a hell of a lot of nerve, Mister. You take liberties with my vital fluids and then you kidnap me?” She stood her ground when he rose to his full height, reminding her just how tall he was, the honed muscles of his bare torso stretching with his action.

  Olivia refused to let her eyes drift down and take in that delicious body. He had hurt her. He was some kind of demon and he had bitten her, and she’d had enough damn men in her life like that. She wasn’t looking for a repeat performance with the tall, dark and deadly slice of sexy standing before her. No way.

  She really wasn’t.

  “Do you intend to hurt me?” She was sure that he wasn’t likely to be honest and tell her if he was, but she had to ask.

  He shook his head. “No. To hurt you would be to hurt myself.”

  That sounded rather noble and romantic. She glanced around the room again. It was huge, and the furniture was solid wood, possibly ebony, and very ornate. Was she in a castle? This was how she had imagined castles looked. Why did he live in a castle?

  “Female, tell me everything about how we met.” That commanding tone again. He was a man used to getting his way, issuing orders and having people obey, and he seemed to live in a castle on the other side of the world to her offices in London.

  Her mind supplied that perhaps he was a knight or a prince. He had a regal bearing and was handsome enough to be someone of noble blood. He acted like a stuck up bastard too.

  He took a step towards her and Olivia moved back one, keeping the distance between them steady. She wasn’t sure whether he had other powers besides the ability to teleport, but she wasn’t going to risk letting him close the gap. He had already bitten her once. There was nothing to say he wasn’t going to try that trick again and drain her dry this time. She bristled at the memory of him attacking her and clenched her fists.

  He halted and quirked an eyebrow at her. Maybe he had good senses like many demons and had detected her anger.

  “Listen. I’ll answer your questions but if you come near me, I won’t be held responsible for the damage done to your private parts.”

  He backed off a step. It seemed that even demons had preservation instincts when it came to their balls.

  “Better.” She moved a step too, enlarging the gap, giving herself more space and ending up closer to the doors. The rich blue sheer curtains billowed on a warm breeze that smelled like blossom. Southern hemisphere? It was early autumn in the northern. “The patrol team found you close to the facility.”

  “How close?” He frowned, his eyes darkening.

  “That was the weird thing. You were practically dropped on our doorstep... like a gift.”

  He cursed in his foreign tongue, his expression turning pensive, which was not good for Olivia because he was even more handsome when the black slashes of his eyebrows drew together, his sensual lips pursed, and his purple eyes flashed with keen intelligence.

  “I knew it,” he muttered, his bass voice still at odds with his lean athletic figure. He paced, his boots making no sound on the floor.

  How could he move silently like that? The dark floor was solid stone and his boots looked heavy, the soles made of layers of leather and possibly wood. He should be shaking the foundations with each determined stride, but he wasn’t.

  She had a thousand questions she wanted to ask him, most of them about whether she was getting out of this alive, but couldn’t find the courage to voice them when he looked so dark and troubled.

  Olivia settled for tracking him as he paced, sure that he would have another question for her soon, because he was thinking hard. He was pale too, maybe even more so than he had been when she’d had him on her inspection table. Was he still sick?

  His purple gaze flitted to her, and then away, and then back again. Whenever it landed on her, he looked lost for a moment, bewildered, as if he had forgotten what he was supposed to be doing but had a suspicion he had been doing something before setting eyes on her.

  Olivia’s body betrayed her every time his gaze landed on her, flushing with fiery heat and that shivery achy feeling that had come over her when they had first met. She cursed herself. She was not going to go through this again. At least the first time she hadn’t realised that she was dealing with a demon until he had tried to take down the central headquarters of Archangel. She knew this time and she had her barriers up and locked in place. There was no way he was going to break them down.

  She was not going to lust after another demon.

  He wheeled around to his right and her eyes shot to the arched door near the other end of the room, close to a low long cabinet.

  It was one of the men from the other night. The one who had spoken. She recognised his face. He still wore his suit of armour, but his helmet was gone, revealing black-blue overlong wild hair. Did all of their species have the same hair and eye colour? He stared at her, purple eyes dark and cold, but laced with a touch of surprise.

  “I sensed your agitation.” He switched his focus to the man who had bitt
en and kidnapped her. “Is everything well, my prince?”

  Prince. Oh my. She had been right on the money. Her kidnapper was a prince. A prince of what though?

  The other male’s eerie gaze slid back to her and narrowed, and Olivia had the dreadful feeling that he would be all too willing to kill her if she was upsetting the man he had referred to as his prince.

  The prince in question shook his head and waved regally, dismissing the male. “That action will not be necessary, Bleu. The female is not a threat to me.”

  Olivia bristled at that. She could have killed him when she’d had him unconscious on her inspection table. Not a threat her ass.

  Both men slid deadly looks her way and Olivia realised she had said it all aloud. She shrank back, trying to make herself look as small and nonthreatening as possible.

  The prince dismissed the male again. This time, he obeyed and left. Olivia waited until he had closed the wooden door before she moved her attention back to the prince and relaxed a fraction. The man in the room with her had bitten and kidnapped her, but had said he wouldn’t hurt her. If she had to choose between him and the one he had called Bleu, who had looked at her as if she were a pest to be eradicated, she would choose her blood-drinking captor over the homicidal maniac.

  “Continue,” he said and she half expected him to use that regal wave on her. If he tried it, she might be inclined to relocate his testicles after all. She might be human, but she wasn’t going to let anyone order her around, not even a powerful immortal prince. She had enough of that from her superiors. “What condition did you find me in?”

  “You’d taken one hell of a beating... don’t you remember fighting?” she said and he shook his head and sat on the edge of his bed. Rumpled purple covers. Barely dressed male. She could do the math. He had woken and come to take her shortly afterwards, because he couldn’t recall the fight and how he had ended up at Archangel. He looked like the sort of man who liked to be in control and hated weakness, and not remembering the events that had seen him dumped unconscious at a demon-hunting organisation were probably driving him mad. “It must have been epic.”