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She whimpered as another orgasm started anew, even as her last one hadn’t fully abated.

  He could feel it vibrating through the intimate flesh in his hand as the juices of her release coated his fingers.

  He drew harder at her vein, the taste of ecstasy in her blood so intoxicating he couldn’t get enough.

  “Please, Ramses,” she begged, her voice rough with desperation.

  He pulled out of her neck but didn’t close the puncture wounds, letting her blood trickle slowly down her flawless skin.

  “Tell me what you want.”

  She didn’t hesitate.

  “You. Inside. Please.”

  He gave it to her.

  But it wasn’t precisely what she asked for.

  Slowly, keeping the pressure of his thumb on her clit, he inserted his long middle finger into her tight, wet heat.

  She immediately clenched around the intrusion, but it wasn’t enough.

  She tried to buck against his hold, but the arm he had around her was unyielding.

  “More?”

  “Please…”

  He inserted another finger and curled them inside her, rubbing against a hard knot high up in her vaginal wall, all the while unrelenting with the pressure of his thumb.

  Her entire body began to shake. Her mouth opened on a silent O.

  Precisely the moment when her third and strongest orgasm hit, he sank his fangs back into her neck, drinking in the tidal wave of her release as she keened long and loud.

  When she finally came down from her high, he gently released her, licking her wounds closed, setting her on her feet.

  Holding her dilated pupils captive as she looked at him like a hypnotized mouse before a cobra, he put the two fingers that were coated with her juices inside his mouth and sucked.

  Her nostrils flared as she watched.

  Taking his time, he licked his fingers until he’d consumed every last drop of her.

  Holding his gaze with unblinking eyes, she sank a little lower against the wall, as if her legs struggled to hold her upright.

  Finally, with his control barely intact, he stepped back from her and regarded her coolly.

  “That is how I take my pleasure,” he said low.

  Her half-closed eyes opened wide at that.

  She took in his too-tight body, sexual frustration etched in every line. His open trousers displayed his rampantly swollen sex, visibly pulsing with frustrated desire, the small slit opening and closing like a tiny mouth, leaking copious pre-cum that made the entire column glisten with unspent lust.

  “But you didn’t…”

  “I take pleasure. I give pleasure. No one ever takes from me. Do you understand?”

  He squeezed his staff from base to head in a viciously tight fist, removing his fluids with thumb and palm, purposely denying her the right to taste him, and tied his trousers over his erection as best he could.

  Her eyes widened even more as she stared bewilderedly at him.

  “But I—”

  “You have no claim on me, Pure One. No one ever will. I’ll fuck whoever I please, whenever I please. Keep your exclusivity for someone who gives a shit. And the next time you interfere with my negotiation, or any of my affairs, I guarantee you won’t like the consequences.”

  With those parting words, Ramses turned around and walked resolutely away.

  *** *** *** ***

  “Well?”

  “It appears that Ramses has not fully accepted nor rejected his gift. He has entered into a Blood Contract with the Pure One we delivered to his doorstep. Furthermore, the Contract is mutual, even desired by the Pure One. Or so it seems.”

  “Interesting,” the hissing voice noted, then added, “and very clever.”

  “Queen Anya has issued a Challenge regardless.”

  “This is your doing?”

  The messenger inclined their head modestly.

  “I have some persuasion with her.”

  “Indeed. Do tell how you managed to convince a queen who is not known for her battle prowess to issue a Challenge to the death to the most fearsome and enigmatic Dark King that ever ruled.”

  “She will invoke the use of a Champion to represent her.”

  “Ah. And do we know who this Champion is?”

  “Someone who has a vendetta to collect with Ramses, I understand.”

  “Have you assessed whether this individual can actually defeat the mighty Ramses?”

  A careless shrug.

  “They have as good a chance as any. However you look at it, we stand to win from the outcome.”

  Beautiful, almond-shaped, thickly-lashed amber eyes blinked in the semi-darkness of the room, indicating that the speaker should continue with their riveting reveal.

  “One, the fight itself will show us the extent of Ramses’ strength. Perhaps even the full extent of his Gifts. Two, no matter which side dies in the process, there will be an empty throne for us to exploit. Queen Anya has a weaker personal guard than Ramses, by far, so her throne would be most vulnerable against a takeover from the outside. If Ramses dies, we’d still have to fight his Chosen to take his throne, I am convinced of it.”

  “That will not be an easy task, but certainly not impossible.”

  The messenger nodded in agreement.

  “Three, we can choose to intervene before a death blow is dealt. We can insinuate ourselves as the saviors on either side. If all goes well, the wounds sustained on both sides will be severe, and if we want to deal the final blow while the Champions are weak, it will be a lot easier than a direct, frontal assault.”

  Blood-red lips curled slowly in a mesmerizingly gruesome smile.

  “You are quite the strategist, my child. I am impressed. But how do you know that Ramses will answer the Challenge himself?”

  “Observation. He is not a titular, paper-pushing administrator. He is a warrior-king. He will fight.”

  The hauntingly exquisite face shrank back into the shadows, hissing out the last words:

  “I am all aquiver to see the match. May it be a Blood Moon tomorrow night.”

  “The young queen expanded her empire rapidly, her powerful Elemental by her side. She enslaved his body and blood to her will when he was but a boy. Rumors whisper that he loved her Purely, and died for his love. Reborn as a Dark One when the Dark Goddess offered a second life, he remained loyal and true to his beautiful, heartless queen…”

  —From the hidden sections of the Ecliptic Scrolls

  Chapter Ten

  Eveline walked back to her apartment in a daze, her body tingly and numb, not quite her own.

  What just happened?

  She could still feel the imprint of his body on hers. His scorching heat, intoxicating musk and steely strength.

  She could feel his fingers rubbing deliciously inside her, his thumb playing with her bud, his fangs in her throat. The primal arousal flaring hot and vibrant in the venom he infused into her veins as he took her blood.

  But he hadn’t let her “take care” of him. He hadn’t let her have him at all.

  She was sated, yet hungry for so much more. Enervated, yet every nerve was like a live wire, humming and crackling with electric lust.

  He confused the hell out of her.

  She felt like crying, and Eveline never cried. She was too rational to have the irrational emotions that ended in tears.

  Wasn’t she?

  After entering her chambers, she threw herself face down on the bed and didn’t bother to undress.

  All she could think was—

  What in Goddess’s name just happened?

  The negotiations had been going well, she thought, all things considered. And if she looked only at the outcome of the session, she certainly got a lot, not the least of which were three, increasingly explosive orgasms.

  But then he ruined it by pointing out that she hadn’t got anything at all. In fact, she might have gotten less than other females in similar encounters with the Dark King.

  It could be inferred t
hat a great number of women had intimate knowledge of Ramses’ body. Eveline had seen the evidence of it in some of their faces at the gathering five days ago. Eveline herself had some knowledge, and she’d been hoping to gain even more given the intimacy of their Blood Contract.

  But he’d put a stop to all that.

  He’d given her pleasure; he’d taken her blood. But nothing else had exchanged between them. Not even the gift of his unclothed body. The taste and fullness of his cock. Most of all, Eveline had essentially been barred from access to him.

  The unguarded, unrestrained version of him that she’d glimpsed so rarely.

  But heavens above! When he did show her, however involuntarily, she’d been mesmerized, hypnotized, irrevocably bespelled. She’d wanted more of those moments, more of the unfiltered, unguarded Ramses.

  So, she pushed for what she wanted. She couldn’t even help it. She couldn’t hold herself back if she wanted to.

  Apparently, she pushed too hard.

  She was extremely resistible to him, even though she found him quite the opposite.

  Logically, his blunt, categorical rejection should be taken at face value—he wanted to keep his options open. She didn’t tempt him to change his usual behavior, not even for a short while. Exclusivity with a female wasn’t his thing. And while he might “like” her well enough to play her body like Orpheus played his lyre, easily coaxing three orgasms from her in less than ten minutes, she was nothing special.

  Eveline curled more tightly in on herself and hugged a giant, king-sized pillow between her legs, against her chest, hiding her face in the yielding, goose-down softness.

  Involuntarily, she sniffed, her throat feeling unpleasantly tight.

  Surely, she wasn’t disappointed by his refusal, was she? He wasn’t even her type!

  Another sniff.

  She must be missing the Shield, Eveline told herself. She was nostalgic for her friends and comrades amongst the Dozen.

  The sniff turned into a sniffle and a series of hiccups as tears leaked unbidden from the corners of her eyes.

  Orgasms were awful things, she thought. They unbalanced her hormones, shook her equanimity. The abduction, subsequent seduction and blood consumption by the beautiful, sinful, powerfully magnetic Dark King finally took a toll on her. Her emotions merely caught up with her, that was all. There was nothing wrong with crying; it was simply a release of sorts.

  Telling herself this, Eveline let the tears flow, closed her eyes, and fell into a fitful slumber.

  As usual, when she dreamed, the same ancient world unfolded before her eyes. So vivid and real she felt like she was right there in the middle of it.

  He was there too.

  Except in this world, his name was Prince Hulaal…

  First Cycle of the Dark Queen Ashlu, sixth millennium BC.

  It had been ten summers since the Elemental prince lost his innocence to the beautiful Dark Queen.

  Since he’d died for his love of her.

  As his body broke down over the course of thirty excruciating days during the Decline, she’d held him in her arms through most of it, murmured words of reassurance, and stroked the sweat-matted curls from his ashen face.

  “It’s not that I don’t love you, my little prince,” she’d told him. “I do love you. Of course I do. You mustn’t ever doubt me. It’s just that Dark Ones and Pure Ones aren’t meant to be together as Mates.”

  “W-w-why?” he’d gritted out through tightly clenched teeth, his jaw almost breaking with the effort to hold in groans of ravaging pain.

  He didn’t want to appear weak by voicing his agony. He might only have been eleven summers, but he wanted the queen to see him as a grown male. Love him as a grown male. She’d taken his manhood into her body, after all. She’d chosen him that night. Just as he’d always chosen her.

  He loved her desperately.

  “Hmm?” she murmured, cushioning his face against her generous bosom, “why aren’t Dark and Pure Ones meant to be together? I don’t know. It just is. The Dark Goddess deemed it to be, and so it is. But all is not lost, my darling. At the end of these thirty days, you can choose to become like me. Then, my gorgeous prince, we can be together at last.”

  He’d believed her every word.

  He hadn’t known that the choice between death or becoming a Dark One wasn’t guaranteed for every Pure One who suffered the Decline when they gave themselves sexually to the one they loved, but who didn’t or couldn’t love them back in the same way. He hadn’t known that some Declines lasted less than thirty days, because his own took every moment of that duration. Until his bones stabbed into his internal organs like serrated daggers, and when he breathed, he choked on his own blood.

  In the end, the Elemental did receive a choice, and he clung to the hope that when he became a Dark One, he would finally be worthy of the Dark Queen who had become his entire universe.

  During the ten years that followed, Ashlu was more careful about taking other males to bed. For, in becoming a Dark One, the Elemental prince’s Gift had evolved as well.

  He was able to control his powers better, and when he was displeased, he withheld them from her. Whereas before, she could feed off his strength through his rich, Pure blood, now she could only grasp his power through sexual intercourse.

  But as soon as she tasted it, felt his Elemental strength course through her body, it would wane far too quickly. By necessity, and soon, by desire, Ashlu rutted upon the gorgeous young prince long and often, delighting in teaching him all the ways to please her.

  To her, his body was a source of power and endless fleshly pleasure. To him, her body was his haven, his heaven, the place his heart called home.

  So when she held a competition at the stronghold for all Dark Ones to participate, where the winner would become her Consort, the Elemental did not, could not, understand.

  “Why are you doing this?” he asked for the umpteenth time, as the Dark Queen’s handmaidens prepared her for the opening ceremony.

  “I am your Consort. I am your Mate. How can you offer yourself to any other male?” he demanded.

  Ashlu looked at the Elemental prince, now truly a magnificent male, unparalleled in primal, masculine beauty and bounty, burgeoning with raw strength and power, his body a fortress of taut muscles, smooth, satiny skin, and long, strong bones.

  “You are not my Consort or my Mate, darling,” she said easily, cajolingly. “You are my own sweet prince. You will always have a special place at my side, but it is not upon the throne next to mine.”

  “Why not?” he argued, the temper that he usually kept carefully leashed making an appearance as his hands fisted by his hips.

  “You were a Pure One, unfortunately,” she answered with a pretty downturn of her lips. “You only became a vampire through the Decline. My Consort must be a True Blood.”

  Not a lowly Blood Slave, she left unsaid.

  “It is the only way the Dark citizens will accept the heir that I will eventually birth. I am sorry, beautiful darling, but this is the way of politics. It’s business, not personal.”

  “Why must you take a Consort now?” he asked, changing tack. “You are powerful enough on your own. You have me!”

  Ashlu did not look at him while the maidens wove her long, dark hair into intricate braids, looping threads of gold and jewels through the silken strands.

  “I do have you, and I always will,” she said firmly. “But I am the destined Queen of All Kinds. I must expand the Dark empire across the known world. There are many other factions, many other hives. I will rule them all. And I cannot do so without alliances.”

  “You can! I will conquer the lands for you. I will lead the Dark armies into battle as I have done ever since becoming a Dark One. I have never lost. I never will.”

  “No,” she stated with finality, spearing him with a hard look, revealing a hint of impatience that he seldom saw from her.

  His heart hurt at her displeasure. He did not understand. He could not unde
rstand.

  Almost immediately, her expression softened again, her amber eyes shimmering with affection and desire for him.

  The Elemental could never resist that look upon her beautiful face.

  “You know that I love you most, my darling,” she murmured, extending her hand to him.

  He took hold of it in both his own and intertwined their fingers, needing the physical connection.

  He wanted to make love to her right now. Be joined with her in the most intimate way. But he knew that she’d frown upon his need.

  He’d learned over the years that the less he showed his unquenchable thirst for her, the more she wanted him. So he kept himself in check, even as his body strained to mate with hers.

  “This changes nothing between us,” she promised. “You will always be my special prince.”

  “But you will be Mated to another male,” he whispered, his voice leaving him as if he physically couldn’t utter the words out loud for fear that they’d come true.

  “You’d take another into your body. How can you love me if you…”

  He swallowed down the bitter bile that rose through his esophagus to flood his mouth.

  Was this what despair tasted like? Was this the poison of jealousy?

  “I have never…” he said brokenly, hardly able to form words, so distraught was he.

  “Only you. I have only ever been inside you. I will only ever want to be with you.”

  “Oh my sweet prince,” the Dark Queen comforted with silky soft words.

  Soft words that nevertheless contained a hard, uncompromising edge.

  “You must learn to separate pleasures of the flesh from joys of the heart. We have an eternity together, you and I. There will be endless varieties of pleasures for both of us. My love for you does not preclude me from enjoying…variety with others. It is time you learned this. It is time you grew up.”

  The more she spoke, the colder the prince’s hands became, as if his blood was freezing within his veins.

  “I am a grown male,” he said, staring deeply into her eyes. “I have loved you as a grown male for the last ten years of my life.”