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MILLS & BOON
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Chapter One
It had been a hell of an eternity.
Especially the past week. As he walked its dark streets, Conner West breathed in the scents of the city: gasoline and oil wafted from the asphalt; wood smoke and the aroma of grilled meats from the weathered brick buildings. From the people he passed, he could smell flowery perfume, musk and the sweet, coppery odor of blood.
He could have flown to his destination. Literally. Or taken the underground passage. But night had fallen, without a trace of star or moon, so the darkness suited his mood. Suited him.
Maybe it was time to leave the city, move on like he had so many other times. But he had friends here in Zantrax, people who could commiserate with his situation. His pace quickened as he neared downtown. Maybe Julian would be at Club Underground. No one understood guilt the way Julian did. And Julian would never leave Zantrax, not while the mortal for whom he felt such guilt and responsibility lived.
But as Conner had learned the hard way, mortals didn’t live very long, especially when they got involved with vampires. That was why he’d walked away from her a couple of days ago. He stopped along the sidewalk, at the same point where he’d rescued her from a heel stuck in a sewer grate. She had rewarded his heroism with a kiss. He licked his lips, tasting her yet…the tangy sweetness that was somehow familiar. Not that all humans tasted the same. Miranda hadn’t. And she was why he’d left the innocent mortal on the street.
So he wasn’t in to sweet young things anymore. She’d have to play this differently then. She’d have to show him who she was now; who he had made her. Undead. And bitter as hell about it. So bitter that she needed to destroy the man who had destroyed the life she’d known.
Despite the crush of the crowd and the volume of the music and conversation, she knew the moment he stepped into Club Underground. Her skin tingled, and her nose twitched as she caught his scent. Her scent. Even now, all these years later, he still smelled like her, like the blood he’d stolen from her. The blood she wanted back.
She turned on her bar stool and scanned the club patrons in search of his face. The crowd parted for him. Women gazed at him in awe, men in envy. Damn the man. With his golden blond hair and piercing blue eyes he looked more angel than devil. But she knew the truth because he’d consigned her to Hell.
He stopped, before he neared her, and folded his long, lean body into a booth in a dark corner of the club. People, standing because there were no other places to sit, blocked her view of whomever he joined. But she didn’t care who he was with now…because soon he would be with her.
“He’s not worth it,” a feminine voice advised.
Brandi, as she called herself now, glanced at the black-haired woman who sat next to her. “You know this personally?” she asked with a flash of emotion she refused to identify as jealousy. It was just irritation…that someone might derail the plan she’d spent years formulating.
The woman shook her head. “Not like that. I know better than to play with fire.”
Brandi hadn’t known that…until it was too late. “He’s that hot?”
“He’s that dangerous,” the woman said, leaning closer as if she feared his overhearing them even though he was nearly across the room. “He’s reckless and careless. Men like him put us all in danger.”
Us…
She was one of them now, one of the Secret Vampire Society—a secret they would kill to keep. She glanced around the club again. Not all the patrons were vampires or other creatures of the night. Some mortals frequented the club for thrills because they suspected the secret. But they didn’t know for certain; they couldn’t know and live.
Was that why he’d killed her, or had tried? Because he’d suspected she’d realized exactly what he was…
But she hadn’t known until it was too late…until she had become what he was.
“A little danger can be exciting,” she told the other woman as she slid from the stool, especially since he was the one in danger. Not her.
Long fingers closed around her arm. “Be careful.”
She patted the other woman’s hand. They weren’t friends; Brandi hadn’t been in Zantrax long enough to make friends. Not that she would have. She’d left her friends behind in her mortal life; they were probably all dead by now. Of natural causes. “I appreciate your concern…”
“But you’re not going to listen.”
She had waited too long while she’d spent years tracking him down at every underground club in the world, so that she could finally exact her revenge. “No.”
The air in the crowded club vibrated with excitement. Conner felt the vibrations in his veins, pumping hot and fast with his blood. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had such a sensation—such a sense of anticipation. Something was going to happen tonight—something that would change everything.
“Are you all right?” Julian asked.
Conner glanced at the concern on his friend’s face. “Fine…”
But he wasn’t. He hadn’t been fine in more years than he could remember, but he’d made certain to never reveal his unrest or his guilt. He could afford no hint of vulnerability, for vulnerability in this society was a sure sign of weakness. And the weak did not survive.
Conner turned back to the crowd and scanned faces in search of the source of the excitement that pulsed in the air like the bass of the music. And he found her. He’d noticed her the minute he’d stepped inside Club Underground, his gaze automatically drawn to the sheen of her glossy red hair. But then Julian had waved him over to the booth before he could approach her.
Now she approached him with a sexy, hip-rolling walk that had his body tensing with desire…and anticipation. Black satin, in the form of a strapless dress, clung to every full curve. His breath shuddered out.
Julian whistled. “Here comes trouble.”
Conner grinned. “Hell, yeah…”
“You don’t need any more trouble, my friend.”
He needed to forget the trouble he’d already found. And making love with a woman like her would probably make him forget his own name let alone his old mistakes. Tonight, more than any other night, he needed to forget…even if he risked making another mistake.
“Is she…?”
“One of us?” Julian asked. “She was talking to Ingrid at the bar.”
Ingrid never spoke to mortals. Hell, she wouldn’t even speak to the vampires who’d fraternized with mortals.
“Conner,” a throaty female voice murmured his name. She leaned over the table, displaying a tantalizing amount of cleavage as her full breasts tested the bodice of the black satin dress.
Regret flashed through him. If she was one of them, Ingrid would have told her who he was and what he’d done. So why had she walked over to him? He braced himself for a slap or worse…as she leaned closer.
Her breath warm against his throat, she murmured, “I want to…dance…with you.”
His body hardened. Maybe he’d only imagined the suggestive emphasis she’d put on dance. But he did not imagine the attraction he felt for this beautiful woman. “What’s your name?”
Her lips curved into a sexy smile of pure amusement. “Brandi.”
“Brandi?” He waited but she offered no last name, not even when he lifted a brow in question. Instead she reached for him. Her long fingers, with sharp red nails, closed around his hand, and she tugged him to his feet.
“Be careful,” Julian said, but Conner ignored his friend’s warning and followed where she led him to a dark corner of the crowded dance floor.
A throaty chuckle, like the purr of a dangerous cat, spilled from her red, glistening lips, as she turned toward him and looped her arms around his shoulders. “You don’t listen, either.”
“Either? Ingrid warned you to stay away from me,” he surmised.
She nodded and stepped closer, her breasts rubbing against his chest. “And when people tell me not to do something, it makes me want to do it that much more…”
A grin tugged at his mouth. “Somehow I don’t think we’re talking about dancing.”
“Is that what we’re doing?” she asked as she pressed her body against his.
He swallowed a groan, again not wanting to betray any vulnerability or weakness. Something about this woman, despite her brazenness, reached out to him, eliciting a depth of attraction and emotion he hadn’t felt in decades. Half a century, to be exact.
“There’s music,” he pointed out, having to shout over the smoky bass and the husky voice of the singer.
“You don’t do other things to music?” she asked with a sexily arched brow. Like her shiny hair, her eyes glinted in the flash of the strobe light. Green with flecks of gold or silver that glittered.
“You really don’t listen,” he mused, both relieved and intrigued. “I’m sure Ingrid told you all about me—about all the bad things I’ve done.”
She smiled and chuckled again, her breasts jiggling against his chest. “I know the bad things you’ve done,” she admitted. “You’ve been very naughty, Conner West. Maybe it’s about time someone finally punished you.”
The flesh at the base of Conner’s neck tingled, and not just because her nails skimmed over his skin. Julian had been right to caution him about this woman; she was definitely trouble. But it had been half a century since he’d gotten into trouble he couldn’t handle. A person was fortunate, or in his case unfortunate, to meet his match only once.
Worried that he already knew the answer, he asked, “And you’re the one who will finally give me what I have coming to me?”
Hell, yeah…
“I’m the only one,” Brandi promised him as she pressed closer…so not even a fraction of space separated her flesh from the taut hardness of his body. Her pulse quickened then raced with excitement…and attraction.
She’d worked too hard for this, waited too long to be distracted from her mission…even by him. Especially by him. Heat penetrated his tailored suit and shirt, and her skin warmed until she flushed. With desire?
She drew in a breath, bracing herself to resist him and his sexy-as-hell charms. His blue eyes twinkled with fascination and mischief, and his grin widened, creasing his cheeks with deep dimples. God, he was handsome—insanely, unfairly handsome.
He moved, sliding his thigh between her legs. Her skirt rode up, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything but the pressure building inside her. She was close…too close to her goal, to vengeance…
She couldn’t—she shouldn’t—think about anything but that. But she could think only of him, of the impressive erection pressing against her abdomen, as his leg shifted again, sliding between her thighs…back and forth across the heat of her panties. Her feet left the floor, so that she had to hang on to him, her arms wrapped tight around his shoulders. Her nails tangled in the silky curls at his nape.
Desire coursed through her, and she gasped at the intensity of it. Her nipples pebbled, peaking against the satin. The silky fabric caressed the sensitive points, as she longed for him to caress them. To caress her…
Dipping his head close to hers, his mouth brushing her ear, he murmured, “You’re so hot…”
“And here I was warned that you might burn me,” she admitted.
That wicked grin of his flashed again, revealing just the faintest hint of fang, while those devastating blue eyes twinkled with a sensual threat. “So you’re not afraid to play with fire?”
Her heart knocked against her ribs, beating hard and fast with fear. But she blithely lied, “I like to play—” she stretched up his body, so that her lips skimmed across his throat, her fangs just scraping his skin “—with fire…”
He shuddered, but his hands tightened on her waist and he pulled her away from him. Her legs trembled as her feet touched the floor again.
“We can’t,” he said, “not here…” He leaned closer, his mouth pressed to her ear, his breath warm against her skin. “If anyone sees us…”
A vampire who exposed her or his fangs in public risked revealing the secret and subsequent punishment for the revelation. That punishment was usually death.
If she could entice him to bite her on the dance floor, she could end it here…
Quickly. Almost impersonally.
Panic pressed on her chest, stealing her breath. She hadn’t waited fifty years for quick and impersonal. She wanted vengeance—messy and personal vengeance.
He slid his tongue across her earlobe and then whispered, “Come home with me…”
She shivered, remembering the last time he’d spoken those words to her. And just like last time, she lifted her gaze to meet his, and nodded.
He dipped his head and brushed his mouth across hers, briefly. But then she slid her fingers back into his hair and tugged him down again. She deepened the kiss, pressing her lips tighter to the curve of his. The smile left his mouth and he increased the pressure and parted her lips for the invasion of his tongue. He swept it in and out of her mouth, stroking it over her bottom lip, over her tongue, over her fangs…
And she was the one who risked everything, who risked revealing a secret she’d never wanted to know. She’d only wanted him…almost as passionately as she wanted him now. The temptation to take what she wanted, to sink her fangs through his skin and drink from his stolen blood…
She closed her eyes, fighting the temptation—fighting the desire.
He dragged his mouth from hers and slid his lips across her cheek to her ear. His voice ragged with desire, he implored her, “Come home with me, Brandi…”
She blinked open her eyes and stared up into the blue depths of his hypnotic gaze. That was all he’d had to do last time—to look at her like that, like he wanted her more than anyone else ever had—and she was helpless to resist him. “Yes, I’ll go home with you…”
But this time things would end differently between them. She would be the one who walked away; Conner West would be the one who died.
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