The curiosity from seconds ago vanished, and a frown of concern formed between his brows. “I thought you said you weren’t going to kill me.”
Alasdair tugged him close and shoved his face in so their noses touched. “I’m about to be the least of your worries. If you want to live, keep your eyes down, your mouth shut, and your thoughts empty. I may be the only one who can talk inside your head, but all of us can hear exactly what others are thinking—so don’t think at all.”
Alasdair pushed him away before he could respond, and with lightning speed, he moved across the room to stand side by side with Isadora, who was glaring at him like he was certifiable.
“I can’t believe you’re risking us both. For him?” she hissed under her breath.
“He’s uncommon for a human. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“You mean he’s appealing and you want to fuck him.”
“Well, that too.”
“He’s far too curious, Alasdair. And stupid, for that matter. Talking to you in such a manner, asking all those questions. Who does he think he is?” she asked. “Not that it matters. He’ll be dead within seconds. No mortal can control their thoughts when Vasilios is near. And I hardly think he’ll be overjoyed to find out what his precious Alasdair has been up to this past month. ”
“Shut it, Isa. If you stop acting as if there’s something wrong, he will merely do whatever it is he’s coming for and then leave.”
The air in the room vibrated under the enormity of power that had entered it as she replied, “You’re mad if you think he won’t notice there’s more going on here. It’s as obvious as your cock every time that male looks at you.”
“The only thing going on here is what you said: curiosity. A mystery. One I wish to get to the bottom of.”
Isadora parted her glossy lips to retort, but she shut her mouth as Vasilios, striking as ever, walked over to them.
“Alasdair. Isadora. Finally, I have found you.” He said it as if he’d been looking for hours. In actuality, it would’ve only taken him seconds to pin point the two of them if he had truly been trying to find their location.
“So you have.” Isadora smiled tightly.
Alasdair stepped around her, deliberately pulling the attention to himself. He was the one distraction his Ancient could never resist.
“You’re looking very debonair this evening,” Alasdair told him as he ran his fingers down the arm of Vasilios’s black suit jacket.
“I have an engagement to attend to. A meeting of utmost importance, I am told. Diomêdês called it. But I wanted to come and see you first since I heard you were…back on your feet, shall we say.”
Alasdair extended his arms out to the sides and gave a slight bow. “As you can see. I’m in perfect health once more.”
Vasilios drank in the sight of him. He inspected his body as if searching for any permanent damage after their last encounter. Alasdair could see the lustful desire in that gaze, but as those eyes traveled over his face and then lower, they creased around the edges in question.
Alasdair looked down his own body to see what the issue was, and that’s when he spotted the three buttons missing at the bottom of his shirt. The white material was parted, showing the button to his pants. It must’ve happened earlier, when he threw Leo across the room.
“Did I interrupt something between you two?” Vasilios asked, glancing from him to Isadora, who was shaking her head vehemently.
“No. You certainly did not.”
“You needn’t sound so appalled,” Vasilios assured her. “Alasdair has a spectacular cock, and he knows exactly how to use it.”
Alasdair thought his cousin’s eyes might fall out of their sockets with the fierce way she was glaring at him.
“I’ll be sure to take that into consideration if, for some reason, there are no other options available and someone has chopped off both my hands, leaving him as the last person in the world I could go to for an orgasm.”
Alasdair inclined his head when her spiel ended, thinking of the one time they’d been together. “Touché, cousin. Touché.”
A playful but vindictive smile stretched her lips as she slowly stepped aside, drawing all attention towards the other occupant in the room. The one who was standing behind them exactly how Alasdair had instructed.
Silent, still, and with his eyes on the floor.
“Vasilios, have you seen Alasdair’s…yielding?” She knew full well that Vasilios had not and that Leo was no such thing. “I thought he was going to send them all away as usual. But this one,” she purred, “he seems rather taken with.”
“Is that so?” Vasilios replied, the man across the room now becoming his primary focus.
“Isa has it wrong,” Alasdair grit out, promising himself that she would pay for this. “He’s not my anything.”
“No? Then why is he here?” Vasilios asked as he turned back to face him. But before anything came to mind, Vasilios cupped his cheek. “Ahh, Alasdair. You do know how to please me. You brought me a gift after disappointing me last week.” He stepped between him and Isadora and put a hand on his shoulder.
Alasdair caught his cousin’s self-satisfied grin as she faded from the room. Then his attention was drawn back to Vasilios as he trailed his fingers down his chest while making his way towards Leo, who, thirteen days ago, was going to be a gift to himself.
“He’s not a gift,” he rushed out as he followed behind. “And certainly not fit enough to be presented to one such as you, Vasilios.”
Vasilios halted his footsteps and then pivoted back in his direction. “He is not fit for me?”
Alasdair watched the male he’d been bound to for over two millennia look over at the man standing in the shadows cast by the candlelight—the one he couldn’t seem to get out of his head. “That’s right.”
“He certainly looks fit from where I’m standing,” he mused. “But I think I need to see him up close. What do you say?”
THE ROOM HE’D been locked in for the past thirteen days was full of tension. Fear or sexual, or maybe both, Leo couldn’t decide as he listened to their voices.
Like the vampire Alasdair had suggested, he kept his eyes on the hardwood beneath his bare feet while the others conversed as if he wasn’t even there. The third occupant who’d joined them, clearly a male, had a voice that Leo imagined would belong to angels, if they existed.
Deep and harmonious, it instantly caught and held his attention, urging him to raise his head and look into the face it belonged to. But Leo didn’t dare follow that instinct after what Alasdair had told him.
Instead, he pressed his palms to his thighs and willed himself to remain still and think of nothing at all. Somehow, he knew in the pit of his stomach that who, or whatever, was now walking towards him was someone he should fear. He wasn’t even looking at the individual, but he was smart enough to know when he was in a room with someone more powerful than he.
The shiny tips of black leather dress shoes stopped in front of him, and Leo heard, “Raise your eyes, human.”
Leo’s body reacted to the order with a shudder, and gooseflesh raised over his skin as he lifted his head, determined to do as he had been told. He wanted to live, and if what Alasdair had said was true, this was the man, or vampire, who’d decide if that would happen.
His eyes trailed over long legs encased in dress pants, and he wondered what exactly he would find when he…
Oh wow.
“Good evening, agóri.”
Before he could think not to, Leo’s mind was flooded with thoughts. The first being that, if Alasdair was the most beautiful male he’d ever seen, then this man… He had no words. He was simply—