Then he felt it again—a strong fist stroking up the length of his erection—and Leo’s entire body shuddered, reacting from the sheer pleasure of it.
“What happens in here also happens out there.”
Leo searched the stranger’s face, trying to recognize something about the man he’d conjured up in his dream. But nothing about the short, dark hair and piercing emerald eyes were familiar. Neither was the way he was making him feel.
“I can hear your pulse,” the stranger informed him in a silky tone. “Thump, thump, thump. It’s a beautiful melody. Is it from fear, I wonder? Or perhaps something more basic in nature. Something more…sexual.”
Leo tried to speak, something he usually didn’t have a problem with. But he couldn’t get anything past the lump that had lodged itself in his throat. The man taunting and touching him was extraordinarily attractive. More so than anyone he’d ever met. And even if his words and the situation hadn’t been alarming enough, being this close to such male perfection would’ve likely rendered him—
“Mute? Oh, that won’t do. Thelo na se gamiso,” his dark fantasy said, slipping into another language.
Greek. And he’d interrupted Leo’s thoughts as if he’d said them out loud.
“But I don’t want your silence when I do it. I want to hear you scream.”
The way he’d said the word scream could’ve been taken as it had been delivered. Full of sensual promise in the haze of Leo’s sexed-up state of mind. But as a contemptuous smirk drew the man’s lips back to reveal two gleaming fangs, the hair on the back of Leo’s neck stood tall. Any attraction he’d been feeling seconds ago drained away and was replaced with dread.
He’d just been reading about this—the monsters of Greek mythology—and he’d come across The Scriptures of Delphi and the origins of vampires. That had to explain this bizarre dream he was having, the reason for this monster in his head.
“This can’t be happening,” he finally managed to say, hearing the disbelief in his own voice. “You’re not real. I’m imagining you. This is a nightmare.” It was the only logical explanation as his lips fell open on another sigh of pleasure and he stared into the face of a…vampire.
Before he could think beyond that, the fist around his cock vanished, and a solid pressure pushed on his shoulder. Then cold fingers pressed against his temple, shoving his head to the side to expose his neck, and he heard, “If that’s true then this shouldn’t hurt at all.”
The patent lie ghosted over his ear as the blinding sting of what felt like a thousand knives sank into his throat. A shout tore from his chest as the vampire plastered itself to his front and let out a feral growl.
The hand on his shoulder ran down his bare arm to his bicep and jerked him forward. He tried to put up a token fight, raising his other hand to shove his attacker, but it was as effective as trying to move a boulder. The vampire was as solid and cool as the column he’d been pressed against, and Leo knew that his effort to escape was a futile one.
As his vision dimmed and his heartbeat slowed, he wondered if what the vampire had said earlier was true. “‘What happens in here also happens out there.’” If it was, Leo only had seconds until—
The teeth devouring him ripped free, and the hands holding him released him with a hard shove. His knees gave out, and as he collapsed at the feet of the dangerous creature, he heard it say, “This cannot be happening,” which mirrored his own thought from earlier.
Then everything faded to nothingness.
ALASDAIR BLINKED, SEVERING the connection between him and the man, and yanked himself from the mind he’d been immersed within.
What the fuck is going on?
He tried to focus on the human pressed beneath him on the bed, but all he could see was a crimson pool of blood seeping from the wounds he’d inflicted. That wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. But the acidic burn racing through his own extremities was.
He wasn’t supposed to feel that. The pain wasn’t supposed to be his. But as he tried to gather his keen hunter senses, he couldn’t locate them. Instead, his vision was starting to blur.
As quickly as he could manage, which was infuriatingly slow at that stage, he pushed away from the human. But his arm gave way and he lurched downward instead.
What is happening to me? he thought as his legs fell slack and useless against those lying prone beneath him.
Then he heard it. A moan of pain. The sound of stirring. And as the sounds filtered inside his head, the scorching sensation in his veins hit his joints and seemed to detonate, locking them into place. His canines retracted with bone-fracturing precision, and his flesh continued to burn. That was when the man beneath him opened his pale, grey eyes.
What the fuck? For the first time in over two millennia, Alasdair was completely captivated. He couldn’t move a single muscle, nor could he will himself to fade out. And as his eyes locked on to those staring up at him, all he could think was, What are you?
It all happened in a matter of seconds, but before he could try to ascertain what he was experiencing, his name, though faint, managed to infiltrate his dazed mind.
Alasdair?
The second time around, the echo of Isadora’s voice came through much clearer.
Alasdair? Where are you? You’re about to be summoned. And we both know it won’t be pretty if that happens.
Even in his current state, Alasdair knew that to be true. If he lived through whatever was happening here, the price he would pay for having thought he’d had time to hunt tonight would be extreme.
But when the man beneath him dared to move, Alasdair gathered some semblance of strength and tightened his grip around the wrists he was holding. The stormy grey of the man’s irises seemed to swirl as the will to survive blazed to life—then Alasdair’s name sounded again.
This time, however, it was like a cannon blast.
The summons.
The pull.
The directive to return home had been issued.
Time stopped, and he and the human faded into the night.
“DAMN IT, ALASDAIR. What the hell happened to you?” was the first thing he heard as he and the man faded in at Isadora’s feet. They landed in an unceremonious tangle of arms and legs on the large, rectangular rug in the Adjudication Room.
The human, whose wrists he was still holding tight, had passed out cold from the transport, which wasn’t unusual for a mortal. It was unheard of, though, that he was just as disoriented.
Isadora crouched by his side, the long line of her leg flawless and her patent red Louis Vuitton stilettos eye level with him. Then she let out an exasperated sigh and rolled up the sleeve of her black chiffon blouse.