Angie Fox: Love Bites

Smaller than the rest, and rounded, it hunkered in a tangle of wild flowers. Waist-high iron crosses ringed the outside of the structure, and garlands of large, fat cloves of garlic hung from the aged wooden roof.

It seemed that the villagers in these parts still had a healthy respect for vampires.

Good for them.

Finn held the garlic aside, so that it wouldn’t bump her on the head as she entered. They didn’t need assistance to see in the dark, but her date lit a series of tapers anyway. She savoured the way he moved through the large, round room.

Wooden benches backed against the brightly painted interior walls, almost as if this was some sort of old meeting place. Or storage area, she noted from the cluster of weather-beaten gargoyles and angels next to her. She watched Finn’s military-precise movements as he touched a lighter to the last of the fat red candles.

She hooked a thumb through her brand-new gold belt. “Would you like to tell me what’s going on here?” An amazing kiss was only going to get the studly vamp so far. It was crazy to come back to Romania. He wasn’t looking at her and, even though she’d never been on a date in her life, this didn’t seem like a happening place.

He turned slowly, as if he didn’t quite want to face her. Candles cast deep shadows across his face. “I’m not a vampire.”

“What?” Her mouth hung open. Thanks to years of ladylike training, she snapped it closed rather quickly.

He didn’t bother to sugar-coat it. “I’m an empath fairy. I can pass as a vampire, or any other creature you can imagine. I can look like you, smell like you, feel like you –”

She bolted for the exit.

In a flash, he was around her, blocking the doorway. “I’m also faster than you.”

Well, if he was like most men . . . she brought a knee up to his groin.

He blocked it just as swiftly. “The Princess likes to play dirty,” he chuckled, avoiding a karate chop to his kidneys. “Look, I’m not going to hurt you.” He looped a finger through her sassy gold belt and hung her out like a hooked sturgeon. “There’s no escape, so don’t even try. I was sent by your father.”

It was worse than being kidnapped. More like being sent back to prison. “I won’t do it. You can’t make me go back there.” Not without a fight. Kat mustered her strength and shot him with a full dose of royal glamour. “Your mission has changed.”

He stared at her. “OK.”

“Let me go.”

He eased her to her feet, leaving her with the wedgie of the century.

She shook it off and locked the empath fairy into her thrall. If he could use her, she had no reservations about using him.

“You’re going to be my transportation, my bodyguard.” And, if she was lucky, something else. Of course she wouldn’t glamour him into sex. That would be wrong. But perhaps she could glamour him into a peek at the best body she’d seen in eight centuries.

“Take off your shirt,” she ordered, before she let herself think on it too much.

He hesitated.

Shoot. True, she hadn’t used her glamour in, well, for ever, but this was supposed to come naturally. “Take off your shirt,” she said again and was shocked when she found herself removing her red silk top instead. It slipped from her fingers and rustled into a silken pool on the stone tiles at her feet.

She couldn’t have been more astonished than if she’d morphed into a bat.

Finn gave absolutely no reaction as she stood there in her black silk bra. And why should he? The man was under her thrall. Now if she could just get it to work right.

She tossed her hair off her shoulders and planted her hands on her hips. “Lose what you have going on upstairs, stud.” She wanted to see that chest.

Instead, her hands found the clasp at the front of her bra. “Wait!” she said, slightly panicked as she popped the front clasp and tossed the scrap of silk over a bowing cherub.

Still, his face showed no expression. But her little striptease had done a number on him below the waist.

The truth crept over her. “You’re not even under my thrall, are you?” The supernatural snake.

And now she couldn’t even cover herself. She tried to cross her arms over her breasts. Embarrassment stung her. Fine time for reverse glamour.

“Do you mind?” she asked.

Candlelight flickered over his features and a roguish smile tickled his lips. “I was hoping you’d want to go another round. See if I might take off anything else.”

“I don’t think I could afford the humiliation,” she said, even though she felt far from defeated. In fact, now that he wasn’t bothering to hide his interest, she found his attention to her body quite stimulating.

Too bad he was on dear old Dad’s side of things.

Planting one sexy gold shoe in front of the other, she sauntered up to him so close that the tips of her breasts almost – almost – touched his white linen shirt. That wiped the smile right off his face.

“Tell me,” she said, her Transylvanian accent thickening with her mounting need. “How are you doing it?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I push your own glamour back on you.”

“Indeed,” she purred. “So what does my illustrious father have in mind?”

He gave her a stony look, but she almost detected a softening in him. He checked his watch. “In about two hours, King Volholme is going to meet us here. He wants to have a few words with you before we escort you back to the castle. Your wedding is tonight.”

Dread settled in her stomach. She wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t. Kat did the first thing that came to mind. She elbowed Finn in the ribs.

She dashed past him, the night air cool on her breasts. Until Finn’s hand clamped down hard on her arm. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Tears welled up in her eyes. “Well, so am I.” She whipped around to face him. “Do you know what it’s like to have an eternal life where nothing you say or do matters? There’s a reason the old ways die out. There’s a reason things change.”

“Princess, I – ” He looked as helpless as she felt. He swore under his breath and shrugged off his thick leather jacket. “Here,” he said, wrapping it around her shoulders.

It was super-heated from his body and held the dark, spicy scent of him. She wrapped it around herself, taking comfort in the sheer size and weight of it. How long had it been since someone actually cared about how hard this was for her?

“You have to understand,” she said, “I can’t be like this. I can’t live like this.”

She could see the muscles working in his jaw. “This marriage will offer the most security for you, and for your family. You don’t have a choice,” he said, losing steam with each word. “I don’t have a choice, either.”

The thing was, she did have a choice. And she was going to make it.

The Princess blinked away her tears and strode back into the old monastery, more resolute than she’d been all night. Finn braced himself. It was a bad sign.

She stood with her back to him in the circular room, which was fine with him. She’d broadcasted enough raw desire tonight to give him a hard-on for the next year. Burying her in his jacket made it worse. She might not feel exposed any more, but now it was almost like a part of him was covering those luscious breasts, the sweet curve of her back. Heaven help him.

Katarina tossed a wave of black hair over her shoulder and it was all he could do to keep himself from reaching out and touching it.

Which was insane.

He never should have let her take her shirt off. He could have just told her that her glamour wouldn’t work on him. But no. He had to show off. He had to prove something to her. What did it matter anyway? She was leaving with Vlad, and Finn was going back to work for the King.