Isadora (Masters Among Monsters Book 2) (24 page)

One of his dark eyebrows rose, and it reminded her of the arrogant, sexy-as-hell man she hadn’t been able to deny whenever he’d been within arm’s reach.

“This is where I was turned,” she said as she crouched to run her fingers through the water. “Did your gods tell you that?”

When he didn’t answer, she stood and walked back to where he had his hand on his chest, gnashing his teeth together, fighting through the pain.
 

“Does your finger hurt? That’s truly unfortunate.”

Quicker than she’d expected, Elias reached for her arm with his restrained hands and pulled her forward. “What are you waiting for, Isadora? Just do it. Finish what you started years ago. Rip my heart out and be done with it.”

She gently removed his fingers from her jacket and told him, “Not yet.” Then she raised her hand to his cheek. When her fingers trembled, she speared them through the strands of his hair instead. Once his eyes had met hers, she said, “I want to know: Are you like your little friend? Alasdair’s human?” She leaned in until her lips were a whisper from his and asked, “Will you see my past if I put my mouth on yours? You never used to, but that was…before.”

His gaze dropped to her lips, and when they came back up to hers, the challenge was written all over his face.
 

Dare you to find out.
 

She brushed her lips over the corner of his mouth and confessed, “I understand you better than you ever imagined. Long ago, I too loved the wrong woman, and she loved me. And, just like you are going to, she died for it.”

With that, she crushed her lips to the familiar ones that had tempted her time and time again and showed him who she really was.

Neda’s Waterfall—31 BC

THE SPLINTERING PAIN ricocheting through his head was like someone had taken a bat to it.
Jesus fucking Christ
, Elias thought as he pressed the heels of his hands to his forehead. He massaged it as if it would help and then lowered his arms when the sound of cracking branches caught his attention.
 

He turned, and as his gaze found the shrubs and trees crawling the rock face of the waterfall, he realized that it looked different.
 

Damn, it is true.
He’d known they would be able to see snippets of the one they were supposed to end, but he hadn’t realized how clear and how real they would be. He also knew that it was fleeting. He’d been warned they would only see a couple of pertinent moments before it was time, but
this
… This went way beyond what he’d expected.
 

There. There it was again, the snapping of branches, and then he saw her. Isadora was eagerly racing between the thick foliage, making her way down a worn track. The sun’s rays warmed her skin as it filtered through the branches and leaves arching over the narrow path. The confident way she ran through the trees made it obvious she’d trekked down to the waterfall several times before.
 

She is beautiful
, was his first thought as she slowed down and walked out into the clearing. She waited off to the side of the riverbank and looked past him as if he weren’t there, and that was when he heard the footsteps of another.

Behind him, a second woman was standing by the lapping water with her back to them. Her hair, the color of the morning light, fell in waves down her back. It was as if Apollo himself had kissed her. Her skin was honey toned, and when she turned, he caught sight of her almond-shaped eyes, which were a rich, sensual brown. She looked like a sun goddess come to life.
 

“Come, my Isa,” the woman invited. “Do not tell me we finally snuck down here only to keep such distance between us. Are you not baking in this sun today?”

Elias watched, transfixed by the glowing smile the woman aimed at Isadora, and when he tore his eyes away to look back at the one he was starting to realize he’d never really known, Isadora was reaching for the leather strap fastened around her breastbone.
 

Fucking hell, this is her.
This is who Isadora had been telling him about. The woman she had loved. The woman who had died.
 

He didn’t know where he wanted to look more: at Isadora or the one she couldn’t keep her eyes from. In the end, he followed her gaze and caught the blonde turning away from them and reaching for the hem of her dress.

Damn,
she was fucking breathtaking, Elias thought, and when a soft gasp came from behind, he knew that Isadora was thinking the same. The golden temptress was several feet away from them, but as the thin material whispered over the skin of her smooth thighs and bare, rounded ass, Isadora walked right past him to get closer.
 

Her skin was flawless, not a blemish to be seen, and Elias caught himself following behind Isadora, wishing he could touch. As the mystery woman slipped the garment over her head, Isadora stopped several inches behind her and raised her hand. She didn’t actually make contact with the woman. Instead, at the last minute, she moved a hand between her own thighs, rubbing the heel of her palm against her covered mound as she pressed the material of her dress high between her thighs.
 

What a goddamn sight she was, standing there so close to the one she loved, pleasuring herself. Elias licked his lips and moved around them so he could see the two of them equally. Both of their faces were flushed, but the blonde now stood naked with her eyes shut and her face tipped up to the sun, whereas Isadora’s lips were parted and her eyes were feasting on the bared flesh in front of her.

What was about to happen? He could only hope it was what he thought, and when the blonde looked back to run her eyes down to the hand between Isadora’s thighs, the lustful gaze she aimed at her made Elias believe he was in luck.
 

“Aren’t you going to get undressed, Isa?”

Isadora swallowed and removed her hand from between her legs. Her nerves were so foreign on the woman and vampire he knew. But there, in this time and place, they fit.
 

She lowered the arm of her dress over her shoulder, and when it fell to the ground her gaze came back up and landed on the woman’s eyes. The heat swirling in those midnight-blue depths made it clear she’d fantasized about a moment like this. A moment when this woman would look at her as she now was. And, when the blonde winked and then turned away to dash into the water, Isadora licked her lips, seemingly ready to follow.
 

She removed the leather binding from around her dark hair, and it fell over her shoulders, making Elias reach for it on instinct. It was no use, though, and he knew that. This was just a vision, a mirage of sorts. If he’d been crawling through a desert and this appeared,
hell,
he would’ve thought he’d died and gone to heaven.
 

Isadora’s hair was black as night, and her eyes a deep ocean blue. Even back then, before she had been turned, she’d looked strong, fierce, and stunning in the curvaceous body she’d been given.
 

As she proudly made her way to the water’s edge, she reminded him of a warrior princess ready to slay any who stood in her way, and with the possessive way she eyed the woman in that river, it appeared she would slay dragons for her.

When her toes touched the shoreline, the woman resurfaced and stood, and Elias couldn’t help his eyes from following the water that sluiced over her hair and down her soft skin. She was exquisite with the sun beaming down on her, and both he and Isadora couldn’t look anywhere but at her.
 

She raised her hands to slick her long tresses down her back, and as her plump breasts rose, her pink nipples hardened from the cool water. She was shorter than Isadora, though not overly. Between her thighs, the soft, short hair had darkened from the water, but dry, the light covering of her mound would be as golden as her head.

“Aren’t you coming in, my Isa?”

Isadora’s hands trembled, and when the woman raised a hand out to her, Isadora put one foot in front of the other and started forward. When she was close enough to take the blonde’s hand, she slipped her palm against the skin of the woman gazing up at her.

“I thought you were going to make me come and get you,” she said around a throaty laugh.
 

Isadora shook her head.
 

“I would’ve, you know. Come and got you. I’ve been dying to get you alone, Isa. Ever since the other night.”

Elias moved closer, drawn to these two and what was about to happen between them more than he’d expected. Then the woman took another step towards Isadora, the water lapping around their upper thighs, and he thought he might pass out as she placed a hand between Isadora’s naked breasts and confessed, “I’ve longed to see you look at me the way you’re doing now. To stand before you like this and feel your eyes touch me. But I want more,” she whispered.

Elias’s heart thumped rapidly in his chest as he held his breath, waiting for…
 

“I want
you
to touch me.”

 
Yes, that.

WHEN ISADORA YANKED her mouth free from his, Elias stared into the luminous blue of her eyes. They were lit, fucking glowing back at him, and her fangs had slid down out of her gums. As she shoved her hips against his erection, he knew she was aroused. This was the first time he’d ever seen her this way.
 

Oh, they’d rolled around between the sheets before and he’d taken her in every place he could get away with, but he’d never seen her like this. Never seen the
real
Isadora Nikitas. Now, he was.
 

As fucked up as the entire situation was, the painful throb in his hand was not the only thing aching anymore. What he’d just seen was possibly the hottest vision he could have imagined. Unless, of course, he himself had been there, participating while it had unfolded.
 

“Who was the woman, Isadora? What was her name?”

When Isadora’s lips parted and her fangs retracted, he asked again.
 

“Who is she?”

“So, you did see my past? Tell me what you saw.”

As if a light bulb had gone off in his head, Elias suddenly understood why she’d wanted to know. Isadora wanted information. She wanted to see this woman, this blonde, and he was the key.
 

“No.”

“Tell me, Elias,” she hissed, and the wild eyes that flashed at him as she fisted a hand in his hair mimicked the same frenzied expression of a drug addict searching for a fix.
 

“Not until you talk. You told me you would tell me who you are before I died, so at least give me this, Isa. Who is she?”

“No one,” she spat out.
 

“It sure didn’t feel that way. You said you loved her. So tell me who she is.”

Isadora kicked her foot out in a sweeping arch, and when one of those deadly heels landed on his thigh, he cursed and dropped to the ground. Taken totally off guard, he wasn’t prepared for her when she came down over him, his hands trapped between their bodies as she pinned him where he lay.
 

He stared at the ferocious woman holding him in place, and as her breasts heaved in agitation beneath the tight corset of her jacket, he thought she’d never looked so spectacular in all the time he’d known her.

“You know what?” she said, scrambling off him. “I changed my mind. I don’t want to know. I don’t
need
to.”

Elias eyed her cautiously, like a feral animal. He’d spotted the lie and the mood change easily. “Well, that’s a shame because that particular vision was a hell of a lot of fun. Insightful too. A pity I didn’t know before that I wasn’t the right
type
for you,” he said, tracing his tongue along his lips and tasting her there, lingering on him.
 

When she snarled at him and her fangs reappeared, a twisted sense of satisfaction coursed through him. This was the Isadora he wanted to see in his final moments. The warrior, not the dejected woman from seconds ago.
 

As she crawled back towards him, her savage sneer told him he’d gotten through to her. She shoved him down to his back so she could move over the top of him. As their hips aligned and she ground hers over his, he whispered, “Tell me, Isadora. Do you love pussy as much as I do?”

She trapped his immobile arms over his head, and when their eyes collided, she gave a provocative smile that made his heart beat so fast that he thought a heart attack might kill him before she did. Then she jerked his hands apart, snapping the chain of the cuffs so his hands were free to move, and answered, “Yes.”