MARIA Her head was spinning.Her heart was beating a fast rhythm and her body was burning up. She felt so hot, she wondered how the water running down her body wasn’t producing steam on contact.And, gods, she was so horny she couldn’t think straight. She felt like she was going out of her mind with lust and the longer Bran watched her with those hot green eyes filled with the promise of every filthy thing he wanted to do to her, the hotter she burned.She felt like she was going to combust from how horny she was. And if her captor was not going to do anything about it—if he was just going to sit over there and watch her—then she was going to get herself off and if he wanted front row seats to the show, then he was free to get them.Who was she to say no anyway?Especially when it was so obvious that he wanted it even though he would probably cut his arm off than admit that he wanted to watch her touch herself.The water sliding down her body, Maria followed the path of the water wit
MARIA “Wait here.”That was what Maria’s captor had told her almost ten minutes ago before he’d walked into the dark aclove off to the right of where she stood.After a long day of walking, they’d finally reached the demon realm. Before today, she hadn’t known that it was possible to cross between realms on foot, but it was actually possible. She’d simply thought that they were merely travelling to a friend’s home that was in the next town, but then after reaching the ends of the forest, they’d come to a wall. The end of the forest.At least that was what Maria had thought. Until her captor had stepped through stand he’d. Scared and a bit excited, Maria had stepped though it too and she’d appeared next to her captor.The other side of the wall was a town. The streets were not that busy—probably because it was dark—but she could see a few people milling around, their horns telling her that they were demons. She also saw a few that didn’t have horns and she briefly wondered what they w
MARIAMaria took note of Bran’s eyes as they followed the woman as she came closer to them. They were still just as black as ever, but she caught the slightest bit of warmth and recognition from them.She was right.This woman was his lover. Although she didn’t have horns. So what was she?The woman stopped directly in front of her captor, seeming to lean slightly into him as if she couldn’t stand on her own.Terrific. Hadn’t she just walked towards them? She could very well stand on her own, just like she’d been standing before she saw them. So why was she suddenly acting like she couldn’t stand up without his support?“It’s been so long, Your Majesty,” The woman said with that infuriatingly seductive smile on her lips. “Why, I almost thought you’d forgotten us.”“I’ve just been very busy, Elizabeth.” The words were clipped and precise, just like he normally spoke. The only difference was that he didn’t pull his eyes from the woman.So this beautiful woman’s name was Elizabeth.Maria
BRAN The door slammed shut behind him as he stepped out of the room, leaving Maria behind.Christ, she was just so infuriating. And so fucking fearless. Bran had never met a woman like her in his entire life. The women he knew were soft and submissive, retreating at the slightest sight of his anger and hurrying to do his bidding whenever he demanded it. They did everything in their power to make sure that they didn’t anger him—Maria did everything in her power to make sure that she pissed him off.And she succeeded every time, damn her.But, Christ, he found it so sexy. Down in the bar, he’d just been about to maul her when Elizabeth had cleared her throat, pulling him back to the present. Had she not detracted him, he would have kissed her right there, damn it. Seeing the flush on her cheeks and neck from anger had the blood rushing to his cock so fast, it made him dizzy.He needed to do something about his perpetual boner for her. He hadn’t gotten laid in a long time because of his
BRAN He paused when he stepped into the room, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness. The rain was hitting the window faster and thunder boomed high in the sky. Lightning flashed just then, light trickling in through the window, from the space between the curtains. In the short flash, his eyes snagged on Maria’s small form on the bed. Was she sleeping? Wanting to see her better, he reached for the light switch and flicked it, turning it on. Light filled the room and Bran’s eyes immediately landed on the one thing he sought. Or person in this case. He was shocked to see that she was already staring at him—through slitted eyes. She was lying on one side of the bed with the sheets pulled up to her chin. When he’d walked into the room, he had thought that she would be sleeping what with the lights off and the view of her curled on the bed, so he was quite surprised to see that she had lifted her head from the bed and was glaring at him. What reason did she have to look at him li
MARIA Oh shit.Oh shit.Those two words were the only things that kept repeating in Maria’s head as the vampire slanted his lips over hers in a dominating kiss. There was no other word she could think of describe the way he was kissing her, but dominating.Her heart slammed against her ribcage as dimly, she realised that this was the vampire kissing her. Her captor. So many times had she wondered what it would be like to feel those firm pink lips on hers, to have them touching any part of her body at all, and now that he was kissing her…Gods, now that he was kissing her, she was just sitting there, frozen from shock, from the switch in events seeing as they had just been arguing a few seconds ago, and finally, doubt. Doubt that this was actually happening.She hd reason to doubt, didn’t she? The man barely tolerated her, ignoring her when she asked questions and barking at her when he was in a peculiar mood to answer—which was rarely. And again, they had been fighting just a second
MARIAThe vampire stalked through the door, not even bothering to knock.He took one look at Maria standing a few feet away from the bed with her hands behind her, struggling to pull up the zipper of the gown, his eyes falling to her thighs where the dress had ridden up to reveal a bare expanse of skin, then he turned away with a dismissive, “Get ready, we’re leaving in five minutes.”She threw him a glare that he didn’t see because he was already slamming the door shut.As if she was deliberately delaying on purpose.The gown that the maid had given to Maria last night turned out to be even shorter than she’d thought it was, but if that was the only problem with the gown, she wouldn’t have been complaining.Not only did the gown stop at mid-thigh—sure, she wore a lot of gowns that stopped mid-thigh, but then they weren’t flared—it also had a neckline that dipped very low, as low as the tops of her breasts, and to top it all off, the gown was tight. Which made it very hard for her to
BRAN “Does she do that a lot?” “It’s not the first time.” “So she does that to avoid being held accountable for her actions.” “She’s not doing it on purpose,” Bran snapped without really meaning to, then cursed and threw the shot of blood into the back of his throat. Swivelling on his feet, he turned around and faced an equally pissed Corey. Ignoring the confused look the man threw at him, he went on. “She fell ill recently and she’s been blinking out a lot. She’s still not fully healed yet, and all through the journey, she didn’t eat anything. I assume that’s why she passed out.” Corey still watched me with that confused line between his brows, eyes narrowed. “How long was the journey?” “Three days,” Bran stalked over to one of the chairs and dropped down on it, draping his hands on the armrest and steeping his fingers in, fighting the urge to check on the sorceress just to make sure that she was okay. He didn’t have to. The house had countless maids and one of them had been p