Kissed by a Dark Prince(13)

“Me?” Her eyes shot wide and indignation joined the ranks of her feelings. “I’m a doctor. I know I work for a demon-hunting group, but that doesn’t mean I would torture one.”

He glanced down at his boots and then back at her, his expression troubled. He growled, exposing his fangs, and shoved his fingers through his black hair.

“He knew what you were when he dropped me there and he knew what I would do,” he barked the words at her, his expression wild and desperate, the look of a man firmly on the edge. He stepped towards her and reached for her, and then let his hands fall to his sides and cursed.

“What... bite me?” She touched the marks on her neck, feeling the pronounced bumps where his fangs had punctured her. What had he done by biting her?

The prince closed the distance between them and she tipped her head back, holding his gaze. He frowned and she gasped as his fingers settled against her jaw. He slid his hand along it to cup her cheek, his eyes locked on hers, drawing her into their purple depths until she felt lost.

“Bind you to me.”





CHAPTER 4


Olivia couldn’t breathe, and it wasn’t only because she was drowning in his eyes and lost in the feel of his gentle touch.

Bind. Her. To. Him.

Bind her. To him.

It gradually sank in, leaving her feeling numb and dazed.

The man had beaten him unconscious and dumped him on her doorstep. Specifically. The prince had come around, injured and weak, and had bitten her. That bite had bound them together.

His enemy had known the whole thing would happen.

He had orchestrated it to make the prince suffer and make her a target.

Olivia changed her mind. It wasn’t sinking in at all.

“What the hell do you mean?” she snapped and glared up at the prince.

His hand was still against her face. Dangerous. She pulled her barriers up, more afraid of him now than she had ever been. She was bound to him. That couldn’t be a good thing. It sounded distinctly intimate and she was not doing intimate with a demon. Never again. She had learned her lesson. You couldn’t trust a demon.

“Under normal circumstances, my biting you would not have been a problem. Your blood would have restored my strength, you would have healed, and your life would have gone back to normal.”

“You keep saying normal.” She always had been perceptive and he might be talking in a very practiced calm and rational voice clearly designed to placate people and keep them calm and rational too, but she was so far beyond calm and rational that she couldn’t even see it in the rear view mirror. “If that’s the normal version of events... what crazy one really happened?”

His fingertips caressed her ear, distracting her.

Olivia knocked his hand away and glared at him. “Answer me.”

He lowered his hand and his shoulders slumped. “Very well. Your blood carries a specific gene that is rare amongst humans. It marks you as a potential mate for my species.”

“Vampires.” She threw it at him like a barb.

He neatly deflected it. “You know I am not a vampire... a forefather of that kind, yes, but not at one with the darkness as they are.”

He was right and it wasn’t only because he had told her before that he wasn’t a vampire that she knew. She knew better than most that he only bore a passing resemblance to a vampire because she’d had firsthand dealings with one, a memory she had buried deep and would rather not recall because it hurt worse than the memory of the bastard demon who had used her.

“Female?” His deep voice pulled her out of her dark thoughts and back to him, and she stared up at him, lost again but for a different reason this time. Her heart ached. She rubbed the spot on her chest and stifled the tears that threatened to come. “Are you unwell?”

Olivia shook her head, touched by his concern and the gentle way he brushed his knuckles across her cheek.

She sucked in a deep breath and squared her shoulders, shoving the pain away and locking it back within her heart.

“What kind are you then? Just what species are you a prince of?” Would he finally give her the answer to the question that had plagued her from the moment she had set eyes on him? He owed her a little honesty since he had pulled her into a messed up war.

“Elvenkind.”

Olivia’s eyebrows shot up. “Elves? The elven species are supposed to be extinct... little more than myths... and you expect me to believe you are an elf?”

He had pointed ears, sure, but he also had fangs and was darkness made flesh. She had always imagined elves would be fair-haired and nature friendly, not black-haired with a penchant for drinking people to death.

He was beautiful though, and tall. She was overly aware of his stature as he closed the gap between them again and she had to tip her head back to keep her eyes on his.