When Vasilios’s eyes focused on him and he bared his teeth, Leo thought he must be mad to continue, but he did so anyway.
“About you and him, back when he was a human. Back when you hunted him and made him—”
“Mine,” Vasilios interjected.
“Yes, umm, when you did that.” Leo nervously licked his lips, not really knowing his place. He’d just been caught in bed with this vampire’s... What do they call them? Lover? Mate?
First sired.
The words were pushed into Leo’s mind, and when his eyes flew back to Vasilios, he added, Alasdair is my first sired.
Oh wow. Okay. This guy’s voice in Leo’s head was like…like…nothing he’d known before. Alasdair’s was hypnotic, made his cock ache and his heart pound. But this male—his voice was like a shot of pure adrenaline, and the power of it rushed through his veins like nothing he’d ever experienced before.
The highest of highs.
“I also saw you with him one night at a ball, with a duke. I keep seeing you and him together. But I don’t know how. I swear. I’m not connected to anything—”
“Ahhh, but that’s where you are wrong, agóri. Because you see, I saw you too.”
Oh fuck. So that did happen. But how? It isn’t possible. Yet, in the dream, Vasilios had looked right at him.
“Yes. I knew you were familiar, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint it until tonight. When you walked into the bedchamber and your eyes went as wide as saucers—I’d seen that startled look on you before. You’re connected to something much more powerful than you even know. And it is something we cannot allow to go unchecked.” His eyes left Leo’s and shifted back to Alasdair’s. “Move aside, Alasdair.”
Leo gulped and shut his eyes. The rush of blood in his head was loud and his hands trembled. If he was going to die anyway, there was no point in Alasdair getting hurt in the process. So he grabbed the sheet and pushed it aside before rising from the bed.
As his feet touched the floor, Vasilios was around the end of the bed and over to where he was now standing. His unforgiving fingers clasped his throat and held him in place.
Leo reached for the fingers even though it was no use. Then Alasdair appeared beside them.
“Let him go,” he said.
Leo struggled to push his words past his constricted esophagus. “Don’t listen to him. If you want to kill me, then kill me. But he’s done nothing wrong.”
“Neither have you,” Alasdair said and glared at him, and Leo’s eyes widened.
So the vampire does care if I live or die.
“Stop talking, both of you,” Vasilios demanded and then yanked Leo forward. This close, he could see the light reflecting off the pointed tips of his fangs, and when the corner of his lip tipped up in a smile, Leo didn’t know what to think. “You say you see these things when you put your mouth on my Alasdair.”
“Yes,” Leo rushed out.
Vasilios slowly tilted his head to the side, examining him. “And you defend him now, when you are to die.”
Leo’s eyes flicked to Alasdair, and he nodded.
“I think you want my agóri as your own. Is that what you want, Leonidas Chapel?”
Leo was about to say no when he heard, Do not lie to him, in his head—Alasdair.
“Yes, I want him. Who wouldn’t? He’s beautiful, and dangerous, and different from anyone I’ve ever met. He makes me feel things I haven’t felt before.”
Vasilios leaned closer and asked, “Is he worth your life?”
Leo squeezed his eyes shut. He wasn’t sure what Vasilios wanted to hear, but he couldn’t imagine going through life now knowing Alasdair was hurt or dead because of him. So, when a fang grazed his lower lip, he opened his eyes and said the only thing that came to mind.
“Yes.”
ALASDAIR STOOD TO the side of Vasilios and Leo, staring in disbelief at the fool human.
Had he really said that he was willing to die for him?
After all the threats, and all the violence, Leo was throwing himself at Vasilios’s mercy. He didn’t dare speak as the silence enveloped the three of them. The mood in the room was strange. It was ripe with fear, loathing, and…lust.
He could sense Leo’s emotions easily enough. He was terrified of Vasilios—and for good reason. His temper was not something any smart being would provoke.
Vasilios’s emotions, on the other hand, were harder to pinpoint.
Only seconds earlier, his intentions had been clear as day, but now, as he stood with his hand around Leo’s throat and his mouth over his lips, Alasdair sensed something else. Something he’d only ever felt directed at him—lust.
Not the everyday feeling of want and desire. But the driving need, the craving to be consumed by the one he was currently touching, and the erection Alasdair saw when he looked below his waist solidified it.
Vasilios wanted this human. He wanted Leo. As much as he wanted him when he was near.
“Yes, you say? Hmm.”
The sound of Vasilios’s contemplation rolled over Alasdair, and then Vasilios looked his way.
“I do love a good self-sacrifice. What say you, Alasdair? Should we keep him? Should we use him as he so blatantly offered only moments ago?”
Alasdair’s cock hardened at the sensual implications Vasilios attached to the word use, and then his eyes shifted to the human. Leo was watching him with the intensity of a hawk, and Alasdair wondered if that look was a plea for his life or a plea for death.
It didn’t matter though. It was too late now.
He was, after all, a selfish being at heart.
Alasdair nodded, and Vasilios had Leo flat on his back and pinned to the mattress in a flash.
“Vasilios, take care. His blood—”
“Oh, I remember, agóri. I’m not going to drink his blood. He’s going to drink mine.” He loomed over Leo, and all Alasdair could think as he walked to the edge of the bed was—if Leo lived through this, the three of them would be forever tied.
There was no turning back now.
ISADORA
Masters Among Monsters #2
January 12th, 2016
It has come to my attention that over the last three years my Special Thanks section seems to always include the same amazing people. This makes me one of the luckiest women on the planet, and if this is the only small token I can give, you will forever have a place in my Special Thanks.
I have been fortunate enough to not only find a wonderful group of people to help me achieve my goals, but I have also found a wonderful set of friends. The kind who are supportive, honest, and loyal to the end. They are women who have become my family and women I couldn’t go a day without checking in with.