“Why?” Mason snarled at the condemnation on his friend’s faces even as he suffered more remorse now that he knew whose mate she was. “You have no idea what it’s like losing your wife, your kids, watching them from afar as they struggle with your sudden, unexplainable disappearance, watch as their love slowly turns to hate because they think you’ve abandoned them.” Ch
oking on his grief as well as his inexcusable actions, he whispered despairingly, “My wife, my children, they were everything to me, and I had to watch them grow old and die hating me.”
Mason knew his inability to cope with the losses his transformation had wrought didn’t excuse his actions, knew that the desperation that had sent him seeking to replace his wife, ease his despair and loneliness with another was wrong as well as futile, but when he had spotted Grace Larsen exiting the city library two weeks ago, saw the mark on the side of her neck that meant she was compatible with his kind, he hadn’t thought, he had simply reacted.
“Hell, man, we’ve all outlived loved ones. That doesn’t condone kidnapping and God knows what else you’ve subjected this woman to.” Luc and Jon were the most easy going of them, reliable when needed, ready to play and enjoy life to its fullest when not. But the disdain in Luc’s voice and the look of pure rage and contempt on his face was anything but congenial.
“You’ve broken our vows to each other, Mason, our promise to continue our existence without harm to innocent humans.” Damien was so mad at yet another innocent woman coming to harm, it was all he could do to keep from plunging his knife into Mason’s chest. If he felt that strongly about retribution, he could only imagine how Jacob felt.
Mason took a step back from the brutal condemnation etched on their faces and the air of menace now permeating the small room. The girl, Grace, was biting her lip in fear as she struggled against her bonds, and the enormity of the injustice he had done to her was a crushing weight he knew he could never get out from under. He saw the cold resolve in Jacob’s eyes as he watched Jacob slip his hand around the hilt of his dagger and without hesitation, took the decision out of his friend’s hands. Turning, he swiftly fled back to the living room to retrieve his own blade.
Consumed with pure, undiluted fear, Grace renewed her struggles as the three huge, terrifying men who had burst into the room moments before raced after her kidnapper’s retreating figure. For two weeks, the man named Mason, vampire as she had come to learn, had held her prisoner in his home. If being whisked right off the street, simply disappearing only to wake shackled on a stranger’s bed, hadn’t been enough raw, terror filled trauma to cope with, finding out her abductor was a blood sucking demon had her mind struggling to hold on to her fragile control. The only thing that had saved her sanity was the obvious struggle Mason had with both his guilt and his efforts not to hurt her, giving her hope she was going to come out of this alive.
But nothing she had endured the past two weeks had shocked her as much as her almost immediate reaction to the sudden intrusion of the tall man who had looked as stunned as she had felt upon finding her there. To her embarrassed horror, the odd mark on her neck that had just suddenly appeared four years ago and that Mason had seemed obsessed with since it was identical to the one he had on his right palm, had started to throb, burn with an inner heat that was quickly reciprocated in her nipples and her pussy. Battling her mortification, she tightened her thighs in the hopes he couldn’t see the way her pussy was dampening at just the sight of him. Not only should the trauma of her enforced captivity the past two weeks have kept her from lusting after him or anyone else, but with his long chestnut hair tied back, a small gold hoop adorning his ear and the ends of a tattoo peeking out of the short sleeve of his black tee shirt, he wasn’t even the type of man she was usually drawn to.
But the biggest shocking kicker had been when his vivid green eyes had turned blood red as a look of torment replaced the shock on his face right before he bellowed in rage, revealing a pair of pointed, lethal looking fangs, and her body’s response to him had remained the same. Seeing the same physical abnormalities on her captor had scared her more than her abduction or the way Mason had forced himself on her three times. At first, she had been determined to find a way to free herself, even to the point of going along with her captor in the hopes he’d let his guard down. She knew she could survive anything he did as long as there was a chance she would one day be free, but when he had bitten her neck the last time he had taken her, the white-hot pain mixing with the burning along her vaginal walls when he ejaculated inside her, she felt her hopes of surviving this ordeal plummet.
That is, until now. Two other men came running in and looked at her with the same stunned expression that quickly turned to anger, seemingly on her behalf, and even though she felt her pale complexion redden under their fixed stares, her mind grabbed onto the first ray of hope she has had in two weeks. Ignoring the way her body tingled in response to the first man calling her his mate, she pulled frantically on her wrists while straining to hear what was going on in the other room after they all left as fast as they had arrived in front of her. Shouts and curses were followed by softer tones, an anguished cry and then deafening, eerie silence.
Jacob looked at the pile of ashes that had once been his friend and comrade, angered that he had been denied revenge because he hadn’t been fast enough to stop Mason from plunging his blade into his own heart with enough force to have it protruding out his back, ensuring he had penetrated his heart completely. Both Damien and Luc’s faces showed signs of relief as well as grief, two emotions Jacob knew he would never feel despite the decades of friendship he had shared with Mason. What he did was unforgiveable. Jacob had waited years to find his mate, to enjoy a special bond with another woman like he had witnessed his other brethren enjoying, to find that one person that would complete him and make his existence worth living. And now that he had, because of Mason’s selfish, misguided actions, he wouldn’t be able to claim her, at least not anytime soon.
Shifting his gaze from Mason’s ashes to look bleakly down the hall, he whispered achingly, “He hurt her. Now what am I supposed to do?”
Damien rubbed his hand down his face, his eyes as bleak as Jacob’s, his heart heavy at Mason’s actions and his death. “We could erase her memory, but now that you two have connected, she’ll be a target. It won’t be safe for her to return home unprotected.”
“She goes with me,” Jacob answered with determination. He wasn’t about to put her in any more jeopardy nor was he going to give her up. There had to be a way to both help her over her ordeal as well as keep her by his side. The desire was there, blatantly obvious in her wide blue gaze and in the way her nipples had beaded tightly and her legs had tightened over her pussy.
“Abby can help,” Luc said, pity for both the woman and Jacob in his voice. “She can verify we aren’t all monsters like Mason.”
Without looking at them, Jacob replied, “Give me until dawn then send Abby to my room.” Without waiting for their reply, he walked back down the hall, but instead of approaching his new found mate with excited expectation, each step was taken with dread, his simmering anger difficult to control despite her tormentor being dead.
Clenching his jaw, he tried to ignore the way she cringed against the headboard when he came in. “Where’re your clothes?”
“I…I haven’t s…seen them since he took them the first day he b-brought me here.”
“Fuck,” Jacob muttered as he searched through Mason’s closet until he finally found a loose, calf length skirt and short sleeved sweater. He continued to look for under clothes and shoes, then finally gave up. Mason probably got rid of them first thing. The hardest thing he had ever had to do was approach that bed and deny himself the pleasure of touching his mate, of forcing back the pounding lust and rigid need straining his cock as he untied her and handed her her clothes without freeing his painful erection and sinking between those softly rounded thighs.
“Th-thank you.” Scrambling off the bed, confused with the way her body was practically demanding she lay back and spread her legs for him while her mind rebelled at just the thought of having sex with anyone right now. He didn’t turn his back while she slipped into her skirt and top, grateful for the clothes small armor against her illogical attraction to this man. No, creature, she forcefully reminded herself even though his eyes were once more a vivid shade of green and there was no sign of fangs. Glancing nervously toward the door, she asked, “Where’s Mason?”
“Gone, by his own hand. You don’t have to fear him ever again. You don’t have to fear anything again. I promise no more harm will ever come to you.” She was short, at least a foot shorter than his own six foot two, and pleasantly round. Her breasts were full and soft, her nipples a pretty pale pink and drawn into taut pinpoints that she couldn’t hide, not even after donning her top. He unabashedly looked his fill, moving from her breasts to visually caress her softly rounded stomach before practically drooling at the sight of bare, plump folds shielding her pussy, folds that held a damp sheen that embarrassed her if the bright red flush spreading across her face and the quick way she stepped into her skirt and pulled it up was any indication. “What’s your name?” he asked abruptly.
“Grace.”
Raising a brow, he waited a moment and when she wasn’t any more forthcoming, he inquired, “Just Grace? Most people have a last name.” He had to bite back a grin when her blue eyes flared with temper, her lips tightened mutinously and her toes curled into the thick carpet. His little mate had a stubborn streak as well as a healthy dose of rage inside of her. He was glad Mason hadn’t cowed her completely. She might be down, but she wa
sn’t out. Now all that remained to be seen was if she had the fortitude to deal with and eventually embrace what lay ahead for her, and them.
Insidious guilt was starting to push the anger aside as Jacob cursed himself for not being there for her the past two weeks. Where had he been, what had he been doing while his mate was being terrorized by one of his closest friends? And why in hell hadn’t he tried to get to the bottom of Mason’s recent deflection from both the manor and from the brethren?
“I want to go home,” Grace said as she wondered how he could make such a promise and why his words warmed her as much as his nearness caused her pussy to clench with need. She had been mortified when Mason had told her to either shave her pubic hair or he would do it, had been embarrassed beyond belief when he had looked upon her bare flesh the first time and felt vulnerable in a way she hadn’t felt even when she had first discovered herself a prisoner. But when this man looked at her bare flesh, when those beautiful eyes lingered on her nipples and on her pubis, the only thing she felt was a deep warmth of lust pooling between her bare folds, a need so strong, so undeniable, it scared her more than anything else had these past two weeks. She desperately needed to get away from this man, needed to go home and put this whole experience behind her as quickly as possible.
Jacob flinched at the desperation in her tone and knew what he was about to say and do would only alienate her from him even more. Yet it couldn’t be helped. Her safety had to come before his need. “I’m sorry. We can’t let you do that. There are others, like us but not like us, who would hunt you and use you for bait or leverage against us. You’ll be safe during the day, but come evening, you’ll need to stay with us where we can protect you.” He hoped she would feel more comfortable if he kept saying ‘we’, if she knew she wouldn’t have to be alone with him, as much as he longed for it to be otherwise.
“So I’m still a prisoner only with a different captor,” Grace returned sharply, her fear taking a step back as anger at her predicament pushed to the forefront of her roiling emotions. “And what do you mean, like you but not like you? From what I’ve seen, you’re all monsters, monsters I never knew existed and wish to God I never had to find out.” She took a step away from him when his jaw clenched and his eyes turned cold, cursing herself for not going along with him for now while she plotted her escape from what looked like yet another abduction.
Jacob gave in to temptation and wrapped his hands around her upper arms just below the sleeves of her sweater. The feel of her soft flesh heightened his already over stimulated senses, adding to the pleasure/pain of holding himself back. “I’m tempted to show you the body of another woman who had the misfortune of coming to rogues attention, but you’ve been through enough. I have no way to tell you what you need to know, no way to convince you you’re safe with me and my brethren right now. But I won’t let that keep me from doing what I deem necessary to ensure you come to no more harm and, right now, that means taking you to our home.” Without giving her a chance to answer, he stated firmly, “Take a deep breath and close your eyes.”
Grace felt a familiar dizzying sensation followed by complete blackness only to open her eyes in yet another strange bedroom. A California king four poster bed dominated the room, covered in a burgundy and navy spread. Thick, plush carpet in the same deep wine red felt soft under her feet, just as her new abductor’s body felt hard as a rock in front of her. For one split second, she found herself leaning into his hard chest, relished the feel of her nipples coming into contact with taut muscles, felt safe and secure with his strong arms cradling her, pushing her pelvis against his groin. But the rigid feel of his hard cock pressing into her stomach was like being doused with a bucket of ice water and with a startled cry, she wrenched herself from his arm.