Page 12 of Dark Fire Kiss

His voice echoed around me, the words overlapping.

Trapped. There was no escape. Not from a creature that couldn’t be killed.

The blackness loomed closer.

I strained, struggling to beat it back. But it was no use. The last of my strength fled.

And the blackness swallowed me whole.

Chapter Four

FERGUS

She’d fainted.

For a moment, I couldn’t believe it. I’d finally found my fated female, and she’d taken one look at my shaft and passed out.

Was that good or bad?

There was no time to analyze her reaction. The moment she regained consciousness, she could channel out of my arms and into thin air, flitting halfway across the globe before I even realized she was gone.

At the thought, my beast roared to the surface, determined to secure our mate.

“Take it easy,” I told it in my mind. The beast didn’t communicate with speech, but it would sense the meaning behind my words. “There is nowhere she can go where we won’t find her.”

Especially since her scent was so unique. Unable to help myself, I lowered my head to her neck and inhaled again. Immediately, a sense of rightness flooded me. “MATE,” my beast said in its way, and I found myself nuzzling the soft skin under her ear. Anything to draw more of her delicious essence into my lungs.

It had been the same with Bram. I’d brushed past him on the training field all those years ago, and I’d nearly gone to my knees as certainty landed thick and heavy on my shoulders.

But he’d smelled of fire and cedar and sex. This little leech smelled like…

I lifted my head, confusion swirling. There was the rich, slightly flowery scent of incense common to all vampires. And there were certainly enough pheromones under her skin to make my cock throb with need.

But there was something else, too, and I couldn’t place it.

She stirred, moaning.

A mystery for another time. Like after I’d tied her down so she couldn’t channel.

I swung her into my arms and strode toward the castle, scanning for other vampires as I went. It was almost impossible to believe she was alone. If I hadn’t realized she was my mate, I’d already be interrogating her. But her scent had caught me off guard, momentarily making me forget my surroundings and the strangeness of finding a female vampire alone and unprotected.

In fact, it was unusual to see any leeches this far from their hidden realm in the Ural Mountains. Clannish and secretive, they rarely ventured into the human world, and only then when they needed blood slaves. The males I’d encountered were tall and powerful, with sharp fangs and red-sheened eyes.

Not hers, though, I thought, stealing a look at her as I crossed the courtyard and climbed the steps to the Old Keep. Her eyes were closed now, but they’d been a deep blue when she stared up at me. And she wasn’t tall, either. On the contrary, she was a slight little thing—almost delicate. Five foot nothing to my six foot two.

A fierce rush of protectiveness surged hard in my chest, and I gathered her more tightly against me as I entered the castle. If someone had told me yesterday I’d be cuddling with a vampire, I would have shifted on the spot and singed their eyebrows off. And yet here I was, cozying up to a leech.

A beautiful leech, I mentally amended. Her wine-red hair spilled around a pale but lovely face with arched brows, a pert nose, and the poutiest lips I’d ever seen. She had a mouth just begging for a man’s—

Some sixth sense kicked in, and I yanked my gaze up seconds before I smacked into a stone pillar. With a quick glance to make sure the vampire was undisturbed, I put on a burst of speed and streaked toward my quarters. There would be time aplenty to memorize her features. Right now, I had to make sure she couldn’t run.

And there was the small matter of alerting my other mate to her presence.

Five minutes later, the vampire was in my bed, her hands and feet bound, while I risked looking away from her long enough to text Bram on the encrypted chat app he insisted on using.

Fergeddaboudit: Can you come to my room? It’s an emergency.

Immediately, three dots appeared on the screen. Before his reply could come through, I typed again.

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