Robert Read online

  “Keep watching her.”

  Robert hung up, staring at the image of his mate—willing her with all his might to spill her secrets and tell him everything he wanted to know.

  Going back to his desk, he dismissed his minion and gathered up the file he’d managed to obtain on Sophie Ford. The only interesting thing about her—besides her spunk and the attitude that had been apparent at the Council three years earlier—was her bond and connection with the mysterious Katie White.

  As he sat back, his mind filled with activity—a barrage of unanswered questions.

  Come and get me.

  Robert shot up out of his seat, looking all around himself.

  I’m yours for the taking.

  Rob looked at the screen. Her eyes stared right back at him. The bluest blue beckoning him to come and get her.

  There was no way that she could know he could hear her thoughts.

  But in truth, Robert did not care. Sophie Ford—his mate—was here, inside his club. His for the taking. And that was exactly what he was going to do.

  He wasn’t a fool.

  He wanted his bond mate and he was going to go and take her.

  Sophie could sense how close he was. Energy sizzled along her skin, making it prickle with nervous excitement. She pushed her ass along the extended shaft of the man dancing behind her, doing everything within her power to call to Robert. She didn’t much care for the man she was dancing with—it wasn’t his attention she was trying to get.

  Her body no longer felt like her own. Most days she felt possessed, itchy and irritable in her skin. Her mind was filled with nothing but the man she was bound to. She wrapped her arms around the neck of her dance partner, her mind seemingly attuned to him—but in actual fact, her eyes sought out the vampire closing in on her. Sophie had no choices left—she needed to be able to think past this wave of lust that constantly consumed her every waking thought.

  The air around her was thick and her nipples responded to the heat, budding out, pressing against her bikini bra. She had dressed to get attention and she had finally got what she wanted.

  It felt like magic—her entire body was on fire. She had known at once when he entered the dance section of the club. It was like a magnetic pulse around him.

  He was there on the edge of the dance floor.

  Watching.

  He caught her gaze and held it.

  He wanted to kill the man she was dancing with. Sophie could sense his need for violence.

  She didn’t care. Her dance partner was a means to an end. She had wanted Robert Valentine’s attention…and now she had it.

  A sense of satisfaction washed over her.

  She blinked and, as she opened her eyes, he was there, barely a breath away. It had been three years since the last time she’d seen him, but now he stood in front of her.

  “Let her go.” His gaze remained on her, but his voice held the promise of pain for her new friend.

  “Buzz off, man. This girl is taken.”

  Sophie tensed. Of all the stupid things to say…

  A second later, Robert had the butt-head pressed up against the bar, his body at a ninety-degree angle. It looked painful and Sophie winced.

  “I said ‘let her go,’ and when I speak, you do what I say. Don’t come into my club again.”

  Silence fell inside the club, the heavy music stopping as everyone took in the scene of vampire against human—the owner against the customer.

  There were rules and this man had just broken the most important of them. Never go up against a vampire. Especially not the boss.

  The man scrambled against the bar and tripped all the way to the door. Her would-be rescuer buttoned up his suit jacket, rearranged his sleeves, then looked around the room. Considering he’d just lashed out at a human in front of more than a hundred witnesses, he appeared remarkably calm and collected. Sophie couldn’t help but admire him.

  He gestured for the other people to continue and music filled the silence. Dancers began shaking on the dance floor and the barman continued to serve drinks, the drama of moments ago forgotten. Robert took her by the arm, forcing her along the dimly lit corridor away from people—away from witnesses. Sophie could feel the pulse in her throat.

  He was angry. She could sense it.

  Everyone they passed moved out of their way.

  Eyes followed them. She could feel them boring into her back.

  Robert Valentine dominated the entire club.

  Moments later, he thrust her inside an empty room. At least, she hoped it was empty. The room was dark, with the only light coming from candles. It was small but cosy. A large bed and a cabinet filled the tiny space. The walls were painted black and the silk sheets were a deep shade of red—the colour of blood.

  Swallowing past her fear, Sophie looked up at him.

  His eyes were black, his body shaking with rage.

  Instinctively, she took a step back.

  He came forward, mirroring her every move.

  “What are you doing here?” Each word was controlled as he spoke.

  Sophie would have preferred the anger, the lash of his loud words. This side of him scared her more than anything had scared her in her life.

  She looked away from his eyes, down at the black-carpeted floor. This entire club was so clichéd—darkness, danger and bloodshed.

  This was the first time Sophie had entered his club but, now, time was of the essence. Whoever was following Katie needed to be stopped.

  “I came to dance.” She spoke the words to the carpet. Her heart rate increased as he trapped her against the wall. The bed was less than three feet away.

  “You allowed those men to touch you.” He spat the words. “Human men.”

  “I’m a human, Robert.”

  His fist connected with the wall by her head, making her jump and scream at the same time.

  He wouldn’t hurt her. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her. She couldn’t explain how, but it was like a natural instinct.

  “You’re my human. Mine.” He growled the words, moments before he slammed his mouth down on hers, taking a kiss from her lips.

  The move was unexpected. Sophie stood there, his lips hard against hers. His teeth had extended with his anger and they were biting into her. Yet she responded to his kiss, hands moving to hold him close to her.

  She cried out as she tasted her blood on her lips, but Robert was too fast. Moments later her head was pushed to the side, exposing her neck. Sophie screamed as he bit into the delicate column of her neck. Blood rushed from her. She couldn’t believe he was biting her, feeding from her. Three years, and he was taking from her without asking. She couldn’t help a wave of euphoria, misplaced though it was. She knew she was supposed to be feeling angry.

  He pushed his lower body against her as he drank her down. She could feel the hot press of him. Sophie suddenly felt so tired. The blood was draining from her. She couldn’t move—she couldn’t do anything but submit to him.

  Her last thoughts were of Katie.

  No matter what happened, she had to keep Katie safe.

  Katie twitched the curtain.

  Yep, the car was sitting in the same place as it had been an hour ago. Outside her house. The car had darkened windows. No one could look in—only the observers inside could look out. Going to work was starting to terrify her. Everywhere she looked, she was sure people were following her. The voices she heard ordering her back to her house terrified her, too.

  “Come on, Sophie, pick up,” Katie mumbled into her mobile phone, only for it to go to voice mail again. Groaning in frustration and temper, she placed the curtain back carefully, not wanting to alert the person in the car that she knew about them. She threw her phone onto the one remaining chair. Katie paced up and down her living room, wearing out the rug that her parents had bought years ago.

  Sophie should be answering.

  She picked up the phone once again and pressed the redial button, waiting for some response.

 
She shouldn’t have allowed Sophie to go. She was on a suicide mission. Only stupid, crazy people got into bed with the vampires.

  “Well, I’m the crazy one,” she mumbled to herself.

  Curiosity had her looking outside again. The car was still there. Swearing, Katie turned away from the window. She checked the locks on all the doors and turned the music up to full volume. Then she went in search of a map and the necklace Sophie had left when she had last stayed over.

  It was dangerous and usually didn’t work, but it was worth a shot. The map allowed her to see Beyer West in all its glory and the object belonging to Sophie held a connection to her. The locket she used was one she’d given her on her twelfth birthday and it was unlike Sophie to take it off…unless she didn’t want to be found.

  Cursing, Katie moved away from the map and held the locket. If Sophie didn’t want to be found, that meant she was up to something she didn’t want Katie to know about.

  Indecision warred within her.

  Giving up, Katie went back to the map.

  She needed to find her.

  Blood was being forced down her throat. Finally, the taste she had craved morning and night.

  Sophie moaned in ecstasy as she took the delicious nourishment.

  She opened her eyes and she began to adjust to her surroundings.

  She had been with Robert in the black room with the blood-red bedding. This room was nothing like the one she remembered.

  She pulled away, trying to escape. Anything that tasted this good was usually very bad for her.

  “Calm down. You’re in my private quarters,” he soothed, moving strands of her hair away from her sweaty brow. “You need to feed.”

  He offered her his wrist again.

  The cut dripped his tempting blood. For days she’d dreamt of being with him, and as much as she was here for Katie she was also here for herself. She’d do anything to stop the endless dreams and the sick feeling that had developed in the pit of her stomach.

  Licking her lips, she gazed back at his black eyes while he offered her his wrist.

  Drink or you will die.

  Sophie glanced around, but the noise had come from nowhere but her head. The rolling of her stomach forced her to place a hand over her mouth.

  “You have to drink, Sophie,” he said.

  With no other choice before her, Sophie reached out.

  Keeping an eye on him, she took his wrist and began to take the sustenance she needed after so long without it.

  His scent surrounded her. She could feel his blood inside her body, as hers was within him.

  Sophie took as much as she could stomach, then moved away from him. After all, she was still human. Once the need had been fed, the blood tasted like blood.

  But she could feel the change inside. The power and strength began to return to her. The last three years had been a struggle. With each passing month, Sophie knew she was getting weaker. Unless she ate a little food every few hours she would pass out and not remember anything of the days before. Katie had helped her to solve the mystery of her sudden tiredness. She was here not only for Katie, but for herself, too.

  It would seem that part of the bond with a vampire required a constant supply of his blood. As the years went by, unless she ate constantly, her body would start to drain of energy and she would be bed-bound for weeks at a time. She didn’t know why she hadn’t gone to Robert—to her mate—sooner. For months she had thought something must be wrong with the blood bond. Never before had she heard of bonded couples who struggled with fatigue or illness as she did.

  But other couples remained together and fed each other. The only thing missing in her case was the blood.

  Robert pressed a damp cloth to her brow.

  “You’re ill.”

  Sophie couldn’t argue with him and she didn’t have the strength to stop him from caring about her.

  Already she could feel the welcoming warmth of his blood inside her body.

  “I feel better.”

  He nodded.

  She looked at him. Really looked at him.

  He wasn’t handsome, but he was sexy. Confidence and power emanated from him. Just by looking at his facial features, you would know he was someone of extreme importance. He had a tan, letting her know that he wasn’t restricted to the night time just because he was a vampire. His black eyes shone with knowledge. His eyes were the scariest thing about him—they followed her wherever she went. The eyes of a predator. He was strong, his body muscular. Even if he hadn’t been a vampire, he would still have been a strong man. As always, though, it came down to his eyes.

  No living person had black eyes.

  “Why am I so weak?” she asked.

  He stopped and gazed at her.

  Sophie had no choice. She needed all the answers.

  “You don’t know?”

  She shook her head. “I thought I was supposed to benefit from this bond.” She sounded petulant, even to herself.

  “None of your friends are dead, are they?”

  “Well, no—”

  “Be thankful, Sophie. Most friends take advantage of the blood bond. It seems you and Katie are very quiet.”

  He wrung the cloth out and wiped the blood away from her neck. Reaching up, she pressed her fingers against the bite marks.

  “They are healed, but you will have the marks for some time.”

  Sophie nodded. There wasn’t a lot she could do about it. The wounds would just have to be covered up. She might be a blood-bonded mate but she didn’t have to advertise the fact.

  Vampires might officially be considered citizens in this country, but there were still groups of humans trying to find new ways of killing them. Of wiping them out. People like her, who gave themselves to vampires, were considered fresh meat—the bottom of the food chain.

  And though they might not like it, these groups understood the bond between vampire and human. They knew that taking the human and torturing her would bring the vampire out into the open. They knew that by killing the blood-bonded mate they could weaken the vampire, and so those were the moments when they struck.

  Vampires could survive past the severance of the blood-bond, though the human could not. But in the first moment the human was killed, the part that connected them would be torn from their bodies, shocking and weakening them. Their senses would be useless until their body had adapted.

  Unluckily for her, if Robert ever died, her body would never be strong enough to survive the severing of the connection. She would die within minutes. Bloody good job it took much more to kill a powerful vampire than to kill a human.

  Sophie had no plans to die in the immediate future.

  “Why am I still weak after just feeding from you?” Sophie asked.

  “You know about the lack of blood?” he asked.

  “Kind of hard to miss that memo.”

  He nodded understanding.

  “You will start to weaken as my blood leaves your body. It has been three years since you last fed from me and you, Sophie, need to learn to accept me again. It will take a little time before you start to feel normal.” Robert wiped his hands on the towel.

  “What do you mean? I thought I was strong enough with the bond and little blood.” Sophie pulled herself up into a sitting position.

  He sighed, shaking his head. “This is why people shouldn’t get involved unless they know what they are offering.”

  “What? What’s going on, Robert?”

  “The blood bond works. You can feel me? Sense me?”

  Sophie nodded.

  “Well, the bond works by giving protection through the blood. Because I drank your blood, I knew who you cared for and how to protect them. By the same token, you should feel stronger and healthier and the aging process should slow down and eventually stop—but only with a constant supply of my blood.”

  “I don’t understand. I’m getting weaker,” Sophie complained.

  Sophie heard him growl, then Robert looked up at her. “That
is because the bond was never completed. Also, you didn’t stay around long enough to take regular feedings from me.”

  Sophie’s mind stopped working, her heart racing.

  “What do you mean the bond was never completed? You drank my blood until I was almost dead. I remember. Then I drank your blood.”

  He pressed his finger against her lips, stopping all talk.

  “That was the start of the process. To complete the blood bond, you have to give yourself to me willingly.”

  “But I did all that.”

  “No. You have to give all of yourself to me. There is a reason a blood bond mate has to be a virgin. I must be the first and only one.”

  Sophie couldn’t stop her eyes from widening. “Do you mean I have… No, I mean—”

  “We have to have sex. Sex, along with the blood draining, brings the connection. You will need to stay with me.”

  “Stay with you?” The surprises just keep on coming tonight.

  “That is why you’ve been getting weaker. You will need my blood and I’ll need yours to keep the bond strong. Always.”

  Sophie felther mouth open in shock.

  “But, but—”

  “You thought you knew all of our secrets?”

  Sophie watched him get up off his seat.

  “We need to have sex?”

  “I gave you over three years to come to terms with this.”

  She shook her head. “Not sex, you didn’t.”

  “You came to us like you knew what you were getting yourself into. I’ve upheld my part of the bargain and will continue to do so. However, if you don’t take my blood or fulfil the blood bond, you will continue to get weaker. I don’t want to upset you with all the details, but let me say it won't be pretty,” Robert said, confirming the harsh reality of her situation.

  Sophie ran her fingers through her hair.

  “What happens if I don’t agree? And don’t pretty up the facts. Like you said, I came to you thinking I knew what I was getting myself into. I obviously didn’t know everything, and now I’d like to know.” She could feel the energy returning to her.

  “These past three years, you’ve been getting weaker. Well, over time, you will grow weaker still. You won’t be able to get out of bed in the morning. Simple tasks will become impossible. Until eventually, you’ll be too weak to live. You’ll go into a coma and die.”