Prologue: The Forbidden Fruit

I’m on my knees between my mother’s fiancé and his worst enemy, the air is thick with that darker scent that always clings to Lucien. Elijah’s hands dig into my hips as he thrusts into me from behind, thick and hard, every stroke pulling a sound out of me I can’t hold back. The length of his cock inside me is both painful and delicious, stretching my tight pussy. Lucien grinds his own cock deeper into my throat, his long fingers digging into my hair.

I should probably mention that this wasn’t how I imagined my life going. A few weeks ago, I was trying to find my missing father. I had no idea that my search would lead me here, between two men who were supposed to hate each other, with my mother’s vampire at the center of it all. Looking back, maybe I should have paid more attention to the warning signs.

Elijah suddenly pulls back, and the absence leaves me aching before I can even understand why. His hands stay on my hips, gentler now, guiding me with him as he settles back.

Then he looks at me. Not the way he looked at me across that restaurant the first time. This is different. Softer. Almost like he is trying to memorize my face. His thumb brushes the corner of my mouth before he leans in and kisses me.

I forget to breathe. There is something dangerously intimate about the way he kisses me after everything that has already happened. His mouth moves slowly against mine, giving me time to pull away. I don’t.

Instead, I grip his shoulders and kiss him back, and something in his expression changes. His forehead rests against mine for a moment, his breathing uneven.

“Layla.”

The way he says my name makes my stomach tighten.

I still don’t understand what being his mate means. I don’t understand why my body recognizes him when my mind is still trying to catch up. But lying there with his hands holding me as though letting go isn’t an option, I understand one thing.

He wants me.

Not just my body.

Me.

And somehow, that scares me more than anything else.

He sinks me down his length, the stretch burns in a way that feels too good. I roll my hips in slow, torturous circles around him, just as Lucien moves in behind me. The slick head of his cock presses against my ass. For someone who was a virgin before this fateful night, I can’t wait to take both of them into my body at once. He pushes in slowly, stopping for only a second when I wince. My pussy pulsates around Elijah, making him groan. Lucien buries himself to the hilt just as my first orgasm hits. Before I can even scream, he grabs me by my throat and turns my face to look at him. His full, soft lips hit mine. His other hand travels down my stomach until his finger finds my clit. He swallows my scream. Then he breaks the kiss and starts moving, rough but slow. Oh so slow.

There is still a part of me that can’t believe I crossed this line with Lucien. I know what he is. I know who he belongs to. More importantly, I know who he is supposed to be to me.

My mother’s vampire. Her fiancé. Her bloodmate.

The man I have spent weeks studying, trying to figure out what he knows about my father. His calm expression never gives me anything useful, no matter how carefully I watch him. Every time I think I catch something in his eyes, it disappears before I can be sure it was ever there.

And yet, whenever Lucien looks at me, I feel seen in a way that makes me nervous.

Not like my mother looks at me. Not like the people who spent years telling me what I should feel or who I should become. Lucien looks at me as though he is trying to understand something about me that even I haven’t figured out yet.

That is the part I hate.

Because I want to know what he sees.

I want to know why his attention affects me so much. Why I notice the sound of his voice even when he is speaking to someone else. Why the scent of him stays in my head long after he leaves a room. Why, whenever he comes close, every suspicion I have about him becomes harder to hold on to.

Maybe that is his greatest weapon.

Maybe I am exactly where he wants me.

I should be afraid of him. Instead, I keep wanting him closer. And the worst part is that I can’t tell where the desire ends and the trust begins.

I don’t trust Lucien.

At least, I keep telling myself that.

But some reckless part of me wants to.

Wants to believe that whatever secrets he keeps have nothing to do with my father’s disappearance. Wants to believe that the gentleness I sometimes catch beneath all that control is real. Wants to believe that when he looks at me, there is something there besides hunger.

I know better than to believe any of that.

Still, when his eyes find mine, I don’t look away.

His mouth finds my neck, lips right over my pulse. He fucks me like it’s nothing, slow and deep while Elijah rocks up from under me, matching his energy. The friction of their cocks moving inside is something I never want to lose.

My fingers dig into his chest, making him growl, low and rough. Lucien’s hand slides around to my breast, his thumb brushing my nipple as he thrusts harder while the other hand is still playing with my clit. The forbidden part of it coils tight in my stomach. I remember who he’s supposed to belong to. It only makes me tighter around them.

Elijah’s hands bruise my thighs as he holds me down and fucks up into me faster this time.

Lucien’s breath is hot against my ear. “Take it.”

I do. I am. I take every inch until the pleasure turns sharp and I cum again, clenching so hard that I start seeing stars. Elijah follows with a snarl, spilling deep. Lucien lasts longer, hips snapping until he comes with a low sound against my neck and fills my ass.

“You know you will have to choose, eventually?” Elijah whispers, his voice husky.

I don’t answer, because I don’t want to choose. I never want to choose.

They stay inside me after, breathing hard. Then Lucien’s tongue licks my exposed neck, his fangs break the skin in one clean bite. The first slow pull of my blood into his mouth sends heat flooding through me. It rolls down my body like fire, pain and pleasure, every draw tightening the muscles still stretched around them. The sensation forces another orgasm out of me before the second one even finishes. I shake between their bodies while he drinks, soft and steady, the forbidden pleasure of feeding my mother’s vampire locking me in place until he finally seals the wound with his tongue.

The irony isn’t lost on me. I’ve spent weeks terrified that an ancient vampire drained my father’s blood, and now I am willingly giving mine to one. The difference is that I want to trust Lucien. I want to believe there is a reason for all the secrets he keeps, a reason he never tells me the truth about my father. I want to believe that whatever exists between us is real.

Some days, I almost believe it.

Then I remember my father.

I remember that he disappeared, that Lucien knows more than he admits, and that I still don’t know whether the man I’m falling for is the one who might help me find the truth or the one who has been hiding it from me all along.

And that scares me more than wanting him ever could.

How the fuck did I end up between my mother’s vampire and his natural enemy?