Love At First Bite Read online

  He’d done it. Her tears coursed down her cheeks as gratitude swelled in her heart. In spite of the fact that she wasn’t worth it, he’d come for her. And in that moment, she remembered exactly why she loved this man. She remembered all the reasons that she’d wanted to spend her life by his side.

  Velkan reached for her.

  Until sunlight cut across his body. Hissing, he jerked back, instinctively covering his face. Then he took another step toward her only to have more mirrors turned to him.

  Even so, he crawled toward her, while Stephen and the others kept the mirrors on him, so that he could loosen her hands. She quickly freed herself.

  Her rage mounting, Retta tried to wrap herself around her husband, but she wasn’t large enough to cover him from the deadly rays that made his skin blister and boil. His entire body was smoldering as he tried to make it toward the wall where there were still shadows.

  He staggered at the same time Stephen and the others left the house. They were coming to finish Velkan off, but she’d be damned if they’d get to him without fighting her.

  Retta stood her ground, ready to battle until she felt someone grab her from behind. She turned to strike but caught herself as she saw a friendly face.

  “It’s me,” Francesca said as she flashed them from the garden.

  One second Retta was a hair from death, and in the next she was in a room she hadn’t seen in centuries…

  Velkan’s bedroom.

  Retta’s heart pounded in fear. “We can’t leave him.”

  “We didn’t.”

  She looked around her as Viktor flashed into the room with Velkan in tow before he sank to the floor between Andrei and Viktor. Horror filled her as she stared at what remained of him. He was bloodied and scorched. The scent of burnt hair and flesh invaded her senses, making her queasy.

  But she didn’t care. Terrified that he was dying, she rushed to Velkan’s side and rolled him over. Tears gathered to choke her as she saw the damage done to him. “Velkan?”

  He didn’t speak. He merely stared at her and blinked.

  Pushing her aside, Viktor and Andrei picked Velkan up from the floor and moved him to the bed:

  Retta followed, wanting to help.

  “You should go,” Viktor said coldly as Andrei struggled to peel Velkan’s shirt from the flesh that seemed to be melted to it. “You’ve done enough damage.”

  “He’s my husband.”

  Viktor narrowed his cold blue eyes at her. “And you walked out on him five hundred years ago. Remember? Do him a favor and let history repeat itself.”

  “Viktor!” Francesca snarled. “How dare you.”

  “It’s all right,” Retta said, calming down her friend. “He’s only doing his job.”

  Then Retta moved to stand beside Viktor. This time when she spoke, she lowered her voice and let her raw emotions show in every syllable. “Get in my way again, boy, and you’re going to learn that Velkan isn’t the only one in this family who has fangs.” That said, she pushed her way past him to reach the bed where Velkan lay.

  She wasn’t sure if he was still conscious until she paused by his side. Her stomach shrank at the sight of his blistered and charred skin.

  But it was the pain in his eyes that took her breath. In spite of the part of her that wanted to run from the horrible sight of him, she reached out and placed her hand to an undamaged part of his cheek.

  He closed his eyes as if he savored her touch.

  “Thank you, Velkan,” she breathed.

  He took a breath as if he would respond, but before he could, he passed out on the bed.

  Viktor moved to stand next to her, “Are you going to just stare at him or are you going to actually help us tend him?”

  She looked to Viktor, whose face bore all the rancor of his voice. “You’re such an asshole, Viktor.”

  He opened his mouth to respond, but Francesca covered his mouth with her hand. “Lay off, little brother. They’ve both been through a lot today.”

  Curling his lip, he moved to the other side of the bed, where Andrei was still trying to get the shirt off. Retta helped him undress Velkan, but as she saw a fierce scar in the center of Velkan’s chest, just over his heart, she paused. That hadn’t been there when he’d been mortal. It literally looked as if someone had staked him through the heart.

  “What on earth?” she said, fingering it. It was at least six inches wide and four deep. “How did this happen?”

  Viktor gave her a droll stare. “Can’t you handle the sight of your father’s handiwork?”

  She frowned at Viktor. “What are you talking about?”

  “The scar,” Andrei said quietly. “It’s where the lance left his body after your father ordered him impaled.”

  Retta jerked her hand back, not wanting to believe it. “I don’t find your humor funny.”

  “I’m not joking.”

  Nausea filled her as she looked back to Velkan’s blistered face. Then she looked to Raluca, who nodded grimly.

  “I don’t understand,” Retta whispered.

  Raluca’s eyes were kind as she explained. “After your father killed you, Princess, he viciously turned on Velkan. He tortured him for weeks until he finally had him impaled in the square at Tîrgovişte. That’s how he died and was able to become a Dark-Hunter.”

  Still, she had a hard time believing it. Her father had loved her so much. Would he really, even in anger, have killed her? He may have hated the world, but to him, his children had always been sacred. “Why didn’t Velkan tell me?”

  Viktor snorted. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you ran from him when he tried and didn’t stop running.”

  “Viktor!” Raluca snapped.

  “Everyone stop ‘Viktoring’ me. I speak the truth that all of you are too scared to say. She ought to understand what he’s gone through to keep her safe. What he suffered as a human. For. Her.” Viktor turned back toward Retta. “He didn’t mind his own death—he’d planned on that. It was yours that destroyed him. He’d surrendered himself to your father, knowing the bastard was going to impale him. He thought that by having you drink the sleeping potion your father would see you dressed for burial and leave you be. His plan was for my mother to take you to Germany, where Francesca was living, and to keep you safe while your father tortured him. He never dreamed your father was going to stab you in the heart while you lay dead.”

  That hadn’t been the plan Velkan had given her. They were to lie side by side as if dead and then awaken once her father was safely gone and convinced of their deaths. Velkan was then supposed to take her to Paris, where they could be together without fear of her father’s reprisal against Velkan. Free of the war that was waged between their families.

  She looked to Francesca for the truth, but for once her friend was speechless. “Velkan surrendered to my father?”

  “What did you think he was going to do?” Viktor asked angrily.

  “He told me we would both drink the potion and that my father would see us dead, then leave us in peace.”

  Viktor nodded. “And you drank it first.”

  “Of course, and then I saw him drink it right after me.”

  Viktor shook his head. “He never swallowed it. Once you were unconscious, he spat it out and placed you in state for viewing. He was afraid that if you were both unconscious your father would behead both of you. So he remained conscious and told your father that you’d died of disease. Your father promised him that once he saw you, he would be content to take Velkan and leave. Velkan submitted to him and had to watch him kill you.”

  And she had run out on him…

  Again, her gaze went to Francesca for verification. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Her gaze sad, Francesca sighed. “You didn’t want to hear it. If I ever tried to take his side, you yelled at me, so I learned to drop the subject.”

  It was true and Retta knew it. She had no one to blame but herself.

  Retta’s heart ached as she thought about how m
any years… no, centuries she’d deprived herself and Velkan of because she’d been stupid and unforgiving. No wonder Viktor hated her. She deserved it.

  Clenching her teeth, she looked up at the picture over the fireplace—the one that had been her wedding portrait. Tears gathered in her eyes as she recalled the day it’d been sketched. The sight of Velkan on the wall, watching her with nothing but adoration on his face. He’d looked like a woodland sprite come to life to stand guard over her.

  She blinked away her tears before glancing back at the bed where her husband lay. “We have to get him healed.”

  “Why?” Viktor asked.

  “So that I can apologize.”

  But getting Velkan healed proved to be easier said than done. The sun damage was hard for even an immortal to overcome. Not to mention they still had the threat of the Order out there wanting them dead. At least here in Velkan’s home the Order couldn’t get to them.

  “You should go rest.”

  Retta looked up at Raluca’s voice. The older woman stood in the doorway with a chiding look on her face.

  Retta stretched in her chair to ease her sore and cramped muscles. She’d been by Velkan’s side for the last four days while he slept. At first his continued sleep had seriously concerned her, but Raluca and Viktor had assured her that it was natural for a Dark-Hunter to sleep like that whenever he was injured. It was what enabled his body to heal.

  True to their words, every day Velkan’s skin did seem better than the day before. Now he merely looked as if he had a serious sunburn and the bruises were all but gone.

  “I don’t feel like resting,” Retta said quietly.

  “You have barely eaten or slept.”

  “It’s not like I can get sick of die.”

  Raluca tsked at her as she turned around muttering. “Fine. I’ll bring your food here, but trust me. If the prince awakens he will be grateful he doesn’t have a heightened sense of smell.”

  Highly offended, Retta daintily sniffed at herself to make sure she didn’t stink.

  “Relax. She was only teasing.”

  Her heart stopped beating as she heard that deep voice. “Velkan?” She shot from her chair to the bed to see his eyes open.

  “I thought you’d be gone by now.”

  She swallowed against the tight knot in her throat “Hardly. I have much to do.”

  “Such as?”

  Retta swallowed against the lump in her throat before she answered. “Apologize to you.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because I’m stupid and pigheaded. Judgmental. Unforgiving. Mistrustful—you can stop me at any time, you know?”

  One corner of his mouth lifted to taunt her. “Why should I? You’re on quite a roll. Besides, you missed the worst flaw.”

  “And that is?”

  “Hotheaded.”

  “I learned that one from you.”

  “How so?”

  “Remember that time when you threw your boots into the fire because you had trouble getting them off?”

  Velkan frowned at her words. “I never did that.”

  “Yes, you did. You also gave your favorite saddle to the stable master because it scratched your leg as you dismounted and told him he could have it but, personally, you’d burn it, too.”

  That one he remembered well. He still bore the scar from it. But what surprised him was the fact that she remembered the incidents. “I thought you banished all traces of me from your memory.”

  She looked away sheepishly. “God knows I tried, but you’re a hard man to forget.” When she looked back at him, their gazes met and locked. “I’ve been so stupid, Velkan. I really am sorry.”

  He lay there completely stunned by the heartfelt emotion in her voice. There had a been a time when he prayed to hear those words from her lips. A time when he’d pictured this moment.

  “Can you ever forgive me?” she asked.

  “I could forgive you anything, Esperetta, but I could never trust you again.”

  Retta scowled at his words. “What do you mean?”

  “When you left and didn’t return, you proved to me that you had no faith in me as a man or a husband. You were so suspicious of me that you honestly thought I could kill you. Obviously, we had a lot of problems in our marriage that I didn’t know about.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Then why didn’t you come home?”

  Because she thought he’d kill her. She really had. “I was young. We lived in turbulent times. Our families had spent generations killing each other—”

  “And you thought that the only reason I married you was to kill you.” He shook his head. “You know as well as I do that I was disowned by my family when they learned we’d wed.”

  It was true. His family had turned them out. His father had sent an army to seal this house and make sure that Velkan would never enter it again.

  But the worst had been his father burning everything that had held Velkan’s symbol or name. Even the family crest book that bore the Danesti lineage had been burned and a new one created that left no trace of Velkan’s birth.

  “I thought that you’d had enough of running from our families. And we both know that had you returned home after killing me and my father, your father would have welcomed you back.”

  Those black eyes burned her. “I made my decision as to who held my loyalty on the day I bound myself to you, Esperetta. I knew the cost and the pain our union would cause my family and still I thought you were worth it. You spat on me and you spat on the love I wanted to give you.”

  “I know I hurt you.”

  “No,” he whispered. “You didn’t hurt me. You destroyed me.”

  Tears welled in her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

  ” ‘Sorry’ doesn’t even begin to fix five hundred years.”

  He was right and she knew it. “Why did you tie our souls together without telling me?”

  His eyes burned her with sadness. “I didn’t want to live without you… in either this life or the next. I had intended to tell you what I’d done, but your father ran us to ground before I had the chance. Little did I know that when I sold my soul to Artemis for vengeance your soul would go with mine.”

  What he didn’t say was that she’d caused him to suffer the very thing he’d wanted most to avoid… a lifetime spent without her.

  In that moment, she hated herself for what she’d done. And she didn’t blame him for not forgiving her.

  He’d given her the world and she’d spurned him. Unable to stand the mistake she’d made, she got up. “Are you hungry?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll get you something to eat. Hang tight.” Retta paused at the door to look back to where he lay on the large bed. It was the bed she’d lost her virginity in. She could still see that night so clearly. She’d been terrified and excited. Velkan for all his ruthlessness had left her untouched and in a room down the hallway.

  He’d promised to take her the next day to her father’s agents and release her. It’d been the last thing she’d wanted. Her father would have sent her back to the convent to live out a life of prayer and hard work—not that anything had been wrong with either of those. But she’d already fallen in love with her dark warlord and she didn’t want to go back without a small token.

  Her intent had been nothing more than an innocent kiss. But the moment their lips had touched, Velkan had swept her up in his arms and she had submitted to him willingly—even more eager to taste him than he was to have her.

  Closing her eyes, she could still remember the feel of him inside her as he clutched her leg to his hip and thrust against her. “I will never let you go, Esperetta,” he’d whispered fiercely in her ear.

  And then he’d given her a kiss so hot that her lips still tingled from it.

  How had she ever turned her back on that? A tear slid down her cheek before she brushed it away and headed downstairs to the kitchen. She scratched Bram on the head as she passed the giant animal that r
eminded her more of a cow than a dog.

  “Good to see you out of that room,” Raluca said as she set her tray down that was filled with food.

  “I’m only here because Velkan is awake and hungry.”

  Francesca snorted as she entered the kitchen behind her. “And you’re here getting food? What kind of stupid are you? I’d be in bed with him.”

  “Frankie!” Raluca snapped. “Please. I am your mother.”

  “Sorry,” she said, but her tone was less than apologetic.

  Retta sighed as she straightened up the flower in the vase Raluca had put on the tray. “It doesn’t matter what I want. I blew it with him a long time ago.”

  Francesca shook her head. “You can’t blow it with someone who loves you that much.”

  “I daresay you’re wrong. I just wish you guys would let me go home.”

  “The Order would be all over you now that they know for a fact you’re real. You can never go home again.”

  And she couldn’t stay here. How perfect was this?

  Raluca gave her a sympathetic smile. “He loves you, Princess. He’s hurt, but underneath that is the man who went through a fate far worse than death trying to save you. He won’t let something as cold as pride keep you from him.”

  “It’s not pride, Raluca. It’s broken trust. How do you repair that?’”

  “That’s up to you, Princess. You have to show him that you want to stay with him.”

  “And how do I do that?”

  “You close your office and have Andrei and Viktor bring all of your belongings here.”

  “What if he won’t let me?”

  “How can he stop you? You’re the Lady Danesti. This home is half yours.”

  Retta smiled as she considered that. But in order to stay here, she’d have to give up everything.

  No, not give up. So she couldn’t be a divorce lawyer in Romania. She wouldn’t be able to keep up her practice too much longer anyway. Some people were already getting a bit suspicious because she hadn’t aged.

  She looked around the stone walls that somehow managed to be warm and inviting. Stay with Velkan…