Finding Fire: Paranormal Romance (Bad Boys Of The Underworld Book 1) (25 page)

She got busy unfastening her own dress. She’d only partially undone the back when Nicolas pushed her back up against the door. She pulled his head down to hers and found his fangs with her tongue. He groaned and pressed his hips into hers.

He reached for her dress and pushed the straps over her shoulders. His mouth left hers and went to her arms to trace the path the straps were following.

As the material slid down farther, her breasts were bared to the cool air in the room. “No bra?” he asked.

“No room,” were the only words she could manage to get out. The material would have shown her bra underneath, and she hadn’t had time to go shopping for one that would work with the dress.

He growled before his mouth closed on one taut nipple. She had to hold back a scream when one of his fangs gently teased the tight bud. One of his free hands reached up to tease the other breast while the other slowly slid up her leg.

Her knees got weaker as his kisses seemed to drug her. His mouth switched to her other breast as the hand under her dress reached her panties. He hooked a finger under the delicate lace and pulled the material down.

Anna pushed her hips out, trying to help him rid her of the panties. As she lifted one leg to step out of them, he sunk two fingers into her core.

This time she did scream. His mouth covered hers to block the noise. She pushed into his hand, trying to get even more of him.

When he removed his hand, she moaned a protest. They were both breathing heavily, and his chest would push into hers with each deep breath. He moved back a bit as his hands quickly undid his zipper. Her hands joined his and helped push the pants over his hips.

He reached the skirt of her dress and drew up the fabric until it bunched around her waist. When he had it all, his hands went to her bare hips and lifted her along the door until she was positioned right above his cock.

“Remember that night outside of your apartment?” he asked. She nodded because she was incapable of speech. “I’ve imagined doing this to you ever since.” His cock slowly slid into her.

Her ankles locked around his back as her hips urged him to move faster. He pulled his head back from hers and looked down at her. His eyes were black obsidian, and his fangs she’d just been playing with peeked out. “Can I?”

He wanted to bite her.
“As long as you start moving, you can do whatever you want,” she said.

He didn’t need any more encouragement than that. His hips pistoned back and forth, finally giving her what she wanted. Right as she threw back her head to scream again, he sunk his fangs into her neck.

It probably should have hurt, but the sharp pang only increased the pleasure she felt. She moved against him even harder, aching for the release she could feel just out of reach. He moved even faster and growled against her neck.

With a few more hard thrusts, she couldn’t help but throw her head back with pleasure. As he felt her come around him, he removed his fangs from her neck and growled his own release.

There was a moment where the only noise in the room was of their frantic breaths. He still held her up against the door, and her legs were still entwined around him. “That was kind of loud. Do you think anyone heard?” she asked.

Nicolas chuckled against her neck as he gently licked at the fresh puncture wounds. “I wouldn’t worry about it. This isn’t a very modest crowd here tonight.”

He slowly backed up and helped her disentangle herself from him. She straightened her skirt, and he helped her refasten the back of her dress.

“Will you let me come with you when you leave?” he asked.

She took a nervous swallow. “That’s a bad idea.”

“Annabelle, believe me when I tell you that this is the best idea I’ve ever had.”

She turned around to face him and knew for certain she was in love with him. She’d been in love with him and was just in denial for this past week. She opened her mouth to tell him but realized he hadn’t professed his love. He did feel something for her, and that was enough for now. “Please come with me,” she said.

He smiled and gave her a big hug. She closed her eyes at the feel of him. So warm and right. She couldn’t let herself believe this was wrong. “You should thank Fredrick,” she said. “He was talking you up to me earlier tonight.”

“You talked about me with Fredrick?”

“Hey, you were the one talking about my ‘safety’ with him,” she said.

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“He told me you’d told him that I hadn’t recognized the voice of Mr. X since I came here.”

“Annabelle, I never told him that. Did he say I did?”

“Yes. Just two hours ago, he said it.”

Nicolas’s jaw had a hard set to it, and his hands worked even faster at his buttons.

“You don’t think...”

“The only reason he would lie would be to gauge your reaction. He wanted to know if you recognized his voice.” He reached for his jacket as he spoke.

“What if I had lied to him?”

“If he was concentrating hard enough, he could’ve been listening for your heartbeat,” pointed out Nicolas.

As Anna finished putting on her own clothes, she said, “He was injured and recovering. Could he have faked that?”

“If he really wanted to.” Nicolas reached for the door.

“We’ve been gone for a while. If he was going to attack tonight, he would be doing it.” Anna knew the layout of the palace well by now. Fredrick was one of the few trusted guards. If he wanted to get Aleksander alone, it would be easy. There were two ways to get back to the ballroom from here.

“You take the long way back,” she said. “I’ll be fine. He already cleared me tonight, so if I do run into him, he shouldn’t be too suspicious. Chances are I won’t get caught alone with him with so many people here.”

“I don’t like the idea of leaving you,” he said.

“I already lost Evie once, and I’m not doing it again. When she killed Charles, she changed my life for the better. I owe her this much. It’s a three-minute walk back to the ballroom. Two, if I go without heels. Just go and keep Evie safe for me.”

Nicolas nodded and with a blur was gone. Anna knelt and took off her shoes before she ran as fast as she could back toward the ballroom.

She prayed Nicolas would get to them in time. Fredrick could’ve already killed her best friend. She moved her feet faster.

So of course she didn’t even see the man before her body collided with a hard form. Her shoes flew out of her hands as she braced herself against the chest that blocked her way. She looked up and Fredrick’s black eyes met hers.

Fear threatened to take over, but she struggled to remain calm. “Fredrick! What are you doing here?” she asked, a bit breathless.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Where are you going to so fast?”

What could she tell him?
“Um, Nicolas and I, we just—um, he bit me. I need to get back to the ballroom.” And she didn’t lie at all.

Fredrick looked at the fresh bite mark on her neck. “Are you sure you don’t want to go somewhere more private?”

She most definitely didn’t want to go anywhere private with him. Especially not with those black eyes. “I need to see Evie.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

She tried to back away from him, but his hands locked around her upper arms. As she pulled harder, they tightened painfully. Her heart started to beat even faster. “What are you doing?”

“The doors here aren’t that thick, Anna. If a vampire really wants to listen through them, they can.”

He knew.
“Why were you listening?” She knew the answer, but she needed to stall him until Nicolas could find her.

“I needed to know how long you and Nicolas would be busy. I always thought you were too classy for a quickie against the door. You surprise me,” he said, as if he had any right to judge her.

She pulled away again, but this time the pain caused by his punishing grip was excruciating. Her knees threatened to give out beneath her.

If he was going to kill her, she wouldn’t go without a fight. Unfortunately, at this moment, the only thing she had was her mouth. “You son of a bitch,” she said. “You think I don’t know you? You are loved and adored by everyone, but it’s just an act. It’s when you’re alone that the real monster comes out. How long is it before everyone knows just how fucked up you truly are?”

Fredrick abruptly let her go. She was barely able to catch her balance as her feet hit the ground.

“You think I’m a monster?” he asked. “Go. You’re free. Would a monster do that?”

Anna carefully considered him. “No, a monster wouldn’t. A monster would like to chase me down, though.”

He smiled an evil smile and showed his extended fangs. “Too smart for your own good, human.”

She never actually saw him move. He was a few feet in front of her one second and the next, his shoulder was right in her face as an intense pain shot through her whole body.

She tried to scream, but no sound came out. She tried to breathe, but no oxygen got to her lungs. He moved back from her, and she saw him draw his sword out from her stomach.

Her legs wouldn’t hold her up, and she collapsed to the floor. Fredrick stood over her for a second, and she looked at how wide the sword was.

Frantically, she tried to take in deep breaths, but she might as well have been wearing a plastic bag over her head. She was going to die. She hadn’t told Nicolas that she loved him. She hadn’t said good-bye to Abigail. She’d only just found Evie again.

Fredrick walked away from her as a blackness crept over her vision. Her eyes closed, but she forced them open again. Footsteps sounded, but these weren’t walking away. Someone approached. When she saw who it was, a whole new fear took over her dying body.

Nicolas ran as fast as he could to reach Aleksander. He found the new king and his bride in a study right off the ballroom. About five guards met him with swords drawn as he entered the room at blurring speeds.

He held his hands up to signal he was there in peace. The swords were not put away, but the guards relaxed a little bit.

“What are you doing? You’re supposed to be keeping a low profile,” said Aleksander.

“Fredrick is the traitor,” shouted Nicolas, breathlessly.

Evie straightened. “Fredrick is one of the most trusted guards,” she said.

“He lied to Annabelle today. He was trying to figure out if she recognized his voice. We have to find him. Annabelle is looking for you right now in the ballroom. I need to make sure she’s protected.” He quickly backed out of the room and raced toward the ballroom with the guards on his heels to search out Fredrick.

He’d only gotten about twenty yards when he heard a sickening crack. As he turned back, Aleksander’s pained shout echoed through the entire palace.

He expected to see a dead king, but what he saw was worse. Fredrick was holding onto the queen. Her eyes looked pained and terrified, but she was completely limp in his arms. Why wasn’t she moving?

Aleksander looked as if he was about to explode. Fredrick held Evie at an awkward angle, with one arm wrapped around her neck. “Do you know the secret to ripping a vampire’s head off its shoulders?” asked Fredrick. “Break the spine first. That way they can’t fight back.” He made his point by tightening his grip while Evie’s eyes went even wider.

“No! What do you want?” shouted Aleksander.

“I want you to die,” said Fredrick.

“Then kill me and let her go,” said Aleksander. Even as the passive words came out of his mouth, his eyes screamed that Fredrick would pay.

Fredrick shook his head. “I need to keep your little queen for security. Nicolas is going to kill you.”

“What makes you think I would do that?” asked Nicolas.

“Your little girlfriend is bleeding to death right now. She only has minutes left. If you want me to tell you where she is, you have to kill the king.”

Nicolas felt his fangs bite into his lip and knew that his eyes had changed as well. He needed to get to Annabelle. She couldn’t die.

He ran to a guard and ripped his sword out of his hand before he even had a chance to react. In a second, he stood right in front of Aleksander with the sword at his neck. Aleksander didn’t even fight it. Evie moaned at the sight of Nicolas holding a sword to her husband’s throat.

Nicolas looked Aleksander in his equally black eyes. “I know you understand. It only takes a second for the ones you love to die.”

“Do it,” was all Aleksander said.

Without hesitation, both men moved faster than they ever had to Fredrick. Evie, who had quietly begun to heal, bit Fredrick’s wrist holding her around the neck so hard that the bone cracked. Aleksander ripped her out of his arms as Nicolas pushed the silver sword right through Fredrick’s heart.

He didn’t wait to see how Aleksander or Evie were doing. He ran to where he’d last seen Annabelle. He sniffed the air, searching for any trace of her blood in the air.

The pit of his stomach sunk when he reached the room he’d last seen her. The scent of her blood saturated the air. Fredrick hadn’t been bluffing.

He ran toward where the smell was even stronger. His worst fears were confirmed when he saw her lying in a pool of her own blood.

Before he even reached her, he bit into his wrist. He slid to his knees and held the bleeding vein to her mouth, but she didn’t react. He listened for a heartbeat but didn’t hear anything. “Annabelle!” he screamed at her. “Open your eyes!”

She remained motionless. The wound in his wrist had closed already, so he reopened it with his teeth. He brought it back to her mouth again, but she made no motion to drink it. Nicolas felt the room spin around him.
She couldn’t be dead.

Footsteps sounded behind him, but he didn’t look away from her face. She would open her eyes any moment now.

“Bellie,” he heard Evie say as she sat down next to him. Her hand reached out to touch her, but Nicolas bared his teeth and growled at her.

She looked at him with tears streaming down her face, mixing with Fredrick’s blood still on her chin. “I’m so sorry, Nicolas.”

Aleksander stepped behind her and Evie couldn’t control her sobs of grief.

“Nicolas…” said Aleksander.

Nicolas didn’t spare him a glance, and Aleksander never finished his sentence. There was nothing to say.

Why were all of these people around him? Annabelle would never want to wake up to all of these people watching her. She’d want to be in her room.

Nicolas wrapped one arm under her legs and one under her shoulders before he lifted her and strode toward her room. A few guests gave him strange looks, but they could go fuck themselves. She would wake up clean and in a bed. She would never want to wake up in a dress covered in blood.

“Where are you taking her, Nicolas?” asked Evie from behind him.

“She needs to wake up in her own bed,” he said, not pausing to look at the queen.

“She drank your blood?”

The hope in her voice was obvious, and he couldn’t help but sneer. “No.”

Her breath caught with grief, but Nicolas didn’t stop. It was Aleksander’s job to comfort his woman. It was Nicolas’s job to stay with Annabelle.

He got to her room and kicked the door open. He laid Annabelle gently on the bed, as to not hurt her any more than she already was.

“She won’t wake up,” whispered Evie from the doorway.

“She wouldn’t want to be covered in blood!” he snarled. “Get some warm water running if you really want to help.”

Another tear ran down Evie’s cheek, but she didn’t say anything else. She walked into the bathroom as Nicolas turned back to Annabelle’s still body.

He didn’t want to roll her over to unfasten the dress, so he grabbed the middle of the fabric and ripped until the extent of her wound was exposed.

Nicolas stumbled away and sped to the bathroom. Evie backed out of his way as he set a towel under the still cool running water and ran back to Annabelle.

He brushed the wet cloth over Anna’s stomach. Her unmarred stomach.

Evie gasped from behind him. “Where’s the wound?”

Nicolas wrapped Annabelle in a hug and pulled her up. “Check her back,” he said.

Evie grabbed the material of the dress and ripped. “Nothing.” She narrowed her eyes at Nicolas. “Anna never drank your blood?”

“I said she didn’t!” He didn’t mean to shout, but he couldn’t control himself.

“She is transitioning.”

“Would Fredrick have given her his?”

“I can’t imagine why,” she said.

Nicolas couldn’t think of any reason either. “It doesn’t matter. It’s done.” Now he had to focus on the transition. If she survived, she was going to wake up tomorrow night, and he would make sure he was here for her.

~~~~~

Anna blinked, trying to see through the darkness. Wherever she was, it was comfortable and warm, but pitch black.

“Annabelle,” said Nicolas. She looked over in his direction, and her eyes started to adjust to the darkness. After a few seconds, she was able to make out Nicolas lying on the bed next to her. Suddenly his handsome features were crystal-clear to her. She wondered whether there was a really dim light on, because she normally couldn’t see a thing in this room when it was dark out.

She smiled at him. “Hey,” she said, but the word came out raspy through her dry mouth. “Do you have some water?”

“Annabelle,” he said again. His arms came around her as he gave her a tight hug. She looked around at her bedroom. She didn’t see her dress from the party anywhere, and she couldn’t remember where she’d put it. In fact, she didn’t even remember coming back to her room with Nicolas.

She tried to focus. She remembered going down to the party. She’d danced with Nicolas, and then they had snuck off together. She flushed, just remembering what they had done.

Then they’d realized Fredrick was the traitor. He’d run off to find Aleksander and Evie, and Fredrick had been waiting for her. “Oh my God, I was stabbed!”

“You’re okay now,” Nicolas reassured her.

She wore one of her t-shirts in the bed, and she lifted it over her smooth stomach.

Nicolas held a hand over her stomach where the sword had cut into her. “Someone fed you their blood last night. Do you remember who?”

“Who would have—oh...”

“You remember?” asked Nicolas.

“Yes. I thought he was going to kill me.” She’d seen his face staring down at her so dispassionately and been certain he was going to finish the job Fredrick had started. Instead, he’d gently lifted her head off the ground and brought his bleeding wrist to her lips.

The idea of drinking blood hadn’t seemed quite so gross when she was dying. Her throat had only gotten a few deep gulps down before she’d passed out.

“Who was it?”

“Marcus.” He looked so different as he’d held her. Almost…sad. “I drank his blood when I was dying. Am I dead?”

Nicolas shook his head. “You’re not dead. It’s just a different kind of living than you’re used to.” His hand came up to her chest over her heart. “Your heart is still beating. Your lungs are still breathing. You are the same Annabelle I’ve known. You will just have a different diet and a longer life expectancy.” He leaned in for a deep kiss.

“Nicolas,” she whispered against his mouth. “I have to tell you something.”

He wrapped his arms tighter around her. “You can tell me anything.”

She molded her body into his. “When I was dying, I had all these strange thoughts. I wished I could’ve had more time with Evie and my aunt, wished I would’ve taken more time to enjoy life. When we were together last night, I wished I had told you that I love you. I know you might not feel the same way, but it’s important to me that you know.”

“Annabelle, when you were dead last night, I went crazy. I didn’t know anyone had given you blood, but I was convinced you would wake up. If you were still dead, I’d be lying in this bed with you for who knows how long before I’d ever accept that you were dead.”

“Is that your really creepy way of saying you love me too?”

“I do love you,” he said. “This week without you has been torture.”

“I never wanted to leave.”

He pressed his lips to her temple. “I know. But for my sanity and the safety of everyone around me, could you try really hard to never leave me again?”

Anna laughed and leaned up to kiss him. “Do I have to drink your blood now?” She felt as if she were in the middle of a desert and hadn’t had any water for days.

“I don’t think that will be an issue,” he said. “You’re a biter in bed anyway.”

She laughed as he flipped her on her back and got to proving his point.

~~~~~

When Anna finally emerged from her room, the night was almost gone. She walked all around the palace, trying to absorb all of her new abilities and gain control of her heightened senses.

Evie and she had their second emotional reunion in a week. She told Anna all about how Nicolas could’ve killed Aleksander but saved her instead. She talked to Anna about the facts of being a new vampire ruled by old ones and tips on how to be in love with an alpha male.

Nicolas was never far behind, and Aleksander seemed to be trailing Evie. It had been too close of a call last night. The men were spooked.

It wasn’t until about an hour before dawn that Anna and Nicolas ran into Marcus. He acted just as arrogant as he always had as he passed the two of them in the hallway.

Anna signaled Nicolas to wait for her and walked after Marcus. “Can I talk to you?” she asked.

“I don’t really have time now,” he said in his posh accent.

She tightened her lips and glared at his retreating back as she kept up with his long strides. “I thought you wanted me dead.”

“I never said that.” He started to walk faster, and her arm shot out to stop him.

As a human, she would’ve had no effect on him, but her new strength made him stop in his tracks. He turned around and stepped close to her. “I know you’re new at this, but I’m still
much
older than you and a hell of a lot stronger.”

“You wanted to make me sorry and you hate Nicolas. What changed?”

One of his hands came to her face and picked up a lock of hair. He gently ran it through his fingers and let it fall back to her cheek. “It would be nice for the prince to owe me a favor,” he said.

“That’s it?”

He clenched his jaw as he looked down at her. “The last time I saw a strong, beautiful human stabbed through, I didn’t make it in time,” he said. “It doesn’t mean I like you and it doesn’t mean that I’m your fucking friend.” He turned and walked away.