Love Like Blood: (Royal Blood #5) (5 page)

“They sterilized you?” he asked, disbelieving.

“It is a weakness,” I replied point blank.

“Lo—”

I silenced him with a single touch, my hand finding its way into the front of his trousers. His eyes fluttered closed, and his lips parted as I began to awaken him all the way. I’d commanded him to strip two days ago, and I hadn’t cared, but now I wanted it. I wanted him to fuck me in this shower like the beast he was and bring me back from the brink.

His fingers fumbled for the button on my jeans, and he began to peel the soaking material away from my skin. He sank to his knees, my hand falling away from his stiffening cock, and he freed me from my clothes, casting them aside.

His lips brushed against my clit before he kissed the little bud of nerves hard, sending a spike of pleasure searing through my body. Then he rose, his tongue caressing the jagged scar on my abdomen before reaching my breasts where he bit each nipple hard, his hands worshipping my clit and teasing my opening. He dipped his finger inside, then pulled back…again and again until I was shaking from want.

A man like Vaughn had to be skilled with his hands. The way he carved up his victims with an artistry that signified a meticulous dedication to his craft, he showed the same dedication to the way he administered pleasure to my body. Vaughn was a man who was capable of pleasure and pain in equal measures.

He lifted me into his arms with one deft movement, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. He pressed the tip of his cock against my slick opening, the pressure eliciting a sharp moan from somewhere deep inside me, the anticipation almost as unbearable as the haze swirling in my mind.

“
Vaughn
,” I murmured, barely holding onto my control.

He thrust, driving into me with reckless force, filling me with his cock until he was deeper than any man had been before him. Deep, unrestrained,
bare
… I felt all of him inside me, and he pulsed as I tightened, the tremor flowing through his entire body.

“
Fuck
,” he moaned as his balls slapped against my ass.

“Tell me how I feel,” I moaned.

“Like heaven,” he replied, holding steady. “You always felt like heaven riding my cock. Your perfect cunt…”

My fingers dug into his back as he spoke, making him wince from the cuts that would mark him for days to come. This was my first fuck with him, but it wasn’t his. He’d fucked me before. He’d fucked the Lorelei of the past.

I wriggled against him, coaxing him to move, to pound his cock into me again and again, to see what I had to offer him.

I wasn’t her. I wasn’t her.
I wasn’t her
.

“Fuck me,” I hissed. “Fuck.
Me
.”

He pulled out of me slowly until just his crown remained, then he slammed into me hard, causing a spike of pleasure to ricochet through my clit.

“Yes!” I cried. “
Don’t stop
.”

We moved as one, furious, fast, and desperate, both of us chasing the same end for different reasons. He thrust harder, the water from the shower beating against his back and running across our skin.

I rose quickly, the world coming back into focus with each stroke of Vaughn’s cock. I cried out as I tumbled over the precipice, my body succumbing to the pleasure, and I came alive, pulsing with the shattering ripples of my release. On and on until I thought I was going to tear apart underneath his desperate touch. Then I felt him pulse hot inside of me, coming and coming, pouring all of his lust into my core.

A backdrop of blue and green, and a woman turning the world red
.

It
was
a memory, and I knew exactly who it was.

The first life.

The test of loyalty.

Rebecca Hemsworth.

T
urning off the shower
, I reached for a towel and dried the water from Lorelei’s body.

I remembered her skin felt like silk, and I’d dreamed of it often since she’d died. Now she was marked. I felt the scars underneath the maze of tattoos and knew it wasn’t going to be the same. The Lorelei I knew was gone forever, but that didn’t change the fact that what we’d just done had eclipsed before until there was only now.

The flame I’d held for her all these years had only begun to burn brighter.

Carrying her to bed, I ignored the pain in my side and back and set her gently between the sheets. Her eyes drooped, but she watched me with interest the entire time. Perhaps she didn’t think I had it in me to be tender. I killed brutally and was ruthless, but I still knew how to love.

Sliding into bed next to her, I pulled the covers over our naked bodies and held her close. Running my fingertips along her shoulder blade, I studied the edge of her tattoo. Geometric shapes crawled across her body, speaking a language that was unfamiliar to me.

“Better?” I asked, my gaze finding hers again.

She looked dazed but content, her outburst seeming to have faded into the background for now. I ran my hand through her hair—hair that used to spill down her back but now only brushed the edges of her jaw.

“I’m not her,” she whispered.

I rolled over, coaxing her onto her back, and pressed my thigh between her legs. She moved with me, rubbing her hands over my arms.

“I know,” I replied, beginning to move.

She sighed, working herself against me.

“Who did you fuck in there?” she asked, her breathing beginning to quicken once more.

“I wanted to fuck the Lorelei I knew,” I said truthfully, my gaze flickering to her lips. “But…” I covered her mouth with mine and kissed her softly.

“But?” she asked, arching her back off the mattress so her breasts brushed against my chest.

I didn’t know how to finish that statement in a way that wouldn’t flip her trip switch. She was unstable and unpredictable, and what had happened in that bathroom was only the beginning.

Moving between her legs, I tasted her sweetness on my tongue. It wasn’t Lorelei, but it was. I slipped my finger into her wet channel and began fucking her slowly, my tongue swirling around her clit.

We’d crossed a line in that shower, and there was no going back. I could fuck her for days. For eternity. For as long as she needed. Sex was a release of pressure for her, and I wondered if it was me or just the act that had brought her back.

No matter what caused it, the fact still remained that she’d remembered something. She’d remembered that night on the balcony at my house in Bloomsbury. She’d remembered the moment when I first tasted her lips on mine. The moment we both understood that something wild had brought us together.

Her thighs tightened around my neck, and I shoved them open, sinking my teeth around her clit. She gasped, forcing herself against my lips, and I gave her what she wanted.

I brought her to orgasm quickly and felt her come apart from the inside, her taste on my tongue like heaven. She pulsed and shuddered, coating my fingers with her juice, and all I could see was her. Lorelei.

As I climbed back up her body, I knew I’d never leave her again. No matter what. I wanted her. I wanted her regardless of who or what she’d become. We were still joined by more than circumstance.

She pulled my lips to hers, fisting her hands into my hair as her tongue darted out and tasted herself on my skin. She was wrong about one thing. Lorelei was still the same in bed. Dirty, unashamed, and tireless.

Rolling away from her, I sat up, leaning my back against the headboard. Raising my arm, I invited her to my side, and she slipped her hand across my stomach, feeling every ripple of muscle with soft fingers.

“What happened?” I asked recklessly as she sank against my chest.

“You forced the memories that had been just out of my reach to surface,” she replied. “I was breaking…” She hissed, pulling away from me. “
Fucking weak bitch
.”

“It’s not a weakness,” I said, grabbing her wrists and tugging her back.

“
It is
.”

“It’s not a weakness to know one’s limits,” I said more firmly.

“
It’s a weakness to show them
,” she argued.

I played with her hair. “Not when you show them to me. If we know what we’re dealing with, then we can plan for them.”

“Like a contingency?” she asked, her voice sounding childlike.

“Yes. Like a contingency.”

“It’s my fault,” she declared out of nowhere, and I wondered if another memory had surfaced. The image of the party I’d thrown for her had been a good one—it was the scene of our first kiss—but I was a fool if I thought things wouldn’t get worse from here.

“It’s not your fault, Lorelei,” I murmured, resting my lips against the top of her head. “But it is what it is.”

“The past cannot be changed,” she said blandly.

Glancing down at her, I found her gaze fixed on the wall opposite.

“No, but the future can.”

“I saw a woman against a backdrop of color,” she said, staring blankly. “Splashes of blues and greens. A blonde woman who turned the world red.”

A blonde woman who turned the world red?
I didn’t know who she was talking about.

“Who?” I asked gently, afraid of what the answer would be.

“Bex,” she replied absently. “My best friend.”

I knew what she was about to say next and knowing didn’t soften the blow. Not one bit.

“I killed her first.”

I
remembered
my first hit with shocking clarity.

In fact, it was the first memory I ever had. I knew that more had come before, but I didn’t care to remember it. If forgetting was part of my training, I never knew. That was the whole point.

I didn’t know who she was until an hour ago, not until Vaughn had brought it out of my broken mind. The knowledge had been locked away, taken from me by The Watchman. If I could kill Bex—the woman who was like a sister to me—without hesitation, then I was ready to become what my father bade.

Rebecca Hemsworth had been my test of loyalty.

T
he Watchman let
me out into the light as a new woman.

I was glad. I was ready to go out into the world and do what I was instructed…to please. Before I could earn my place by my father’s side, I had one last assignment. An assignment I had to do on my own, with no assistance and no information other than my target’s name.

Rebecca Hemsworth.

Extinguish her life as cleanly as possible. No hesitation, no identification. In and out like a ghost. It didn’t matter why, only
how
.

The target owned an upper-class art gallery in Kensington, London. She was dedicated to her job and worked long hours—often alone. After the death of her associate, she had thrown herself into the running of the space to the point of exhaustion. It was this knowledge that I would use to my advantage.

I watched her comings and goings from the gallery for days before I picked a night that I knew she was working beyond daylight hours. Once I set the plan in motion, there would be no going back.

Before I entered the gallery, I did a sweep of the general area, including the loading bay at the rear of the building. I took stock of where all the CCTV cameras were, including those on the street outside, and calculated their field of vision. There were no personnel on site, no delivery drivers, no cleaners, no warehouse staff. The only person inside the gallery was the target.

Picking the lock on the access door at the rear of the building, I found the junction box just inside the delivery bay and pulled the circuit for the security feed, cutting power to the offices. Then I locked up and came at the target from a different angle.

Moving down the darkening street, I kept my face averted from the cameras positioned on the street and peered through the windows into the cavernous space beyond. Space Gallery was minimal in design with polished concrete floors and white walls, the space mostly reserved for the art they showed.

Movement drew my gaze, and I locked onto the target.

The woman was tall and elegant, the clothing she wore indicative of wealth. Her perfectly blonde hair was tied into a bun at the nape of her long neck, her stiff posture most likely the result of years of private schooling.

One arm was hooked around her waist, and the other was raised while her long finger, tipped with a red manicured nail, tapped her chin as she gazed at the painting that hung on the wall. A white canvas with blue and green splotches. It meant absolutely nothing to me, but it held the woman’s interest keenly.

The gallery was full of the same abstract stylings. Wherever a painting could be hung, there was a canvas. Reds, blues, purples, yellows… Variations of the same theme hung everywhere, splashes of colors that held no meaning to me. I didn’t understand it, but I wasn’t here to admire the walls.

Opening the door, it moved silently on its hinges, and I stepped inside, my boots making no sound on the concrete. Keeping my head low, I closed myself inside, aware that my back was still exposed to the street. My hand found the deadlock on the door, and I flipped it, the click echoing loudly through the empty gallery.

The woman turned at the sound, her gaze meeting mine. Her expression began to change, revolving through a myriad of emotions I didn’t care about.

“
Lorrie?
” she asked, her eyes wide with shock.

I cocked my head to the side, watching the blonde woman with interest. She recognized me, which meant she’d mistaken me for someone else, or she’d known me before the darkness. Either way, I could use her familiarity against her. The kill would be quick and clean.

“It can’t be,” she whispered, taking a step forward.

I shook my head and nodded toward the rear of the building where I knew storage was located. There would be no witnesses out there. The blonde woman’s death would be private.

She nodded and gestured for me to follow her, her gaze darting to the windows behind me. She had no clue what was about to happen to her. None whatsoever.

The storeroom was dark. After the woman flipped the light switch, and illuminated the space, she turned to me, her expression full of all kinds of things I didn’t recognize.

She came forward and threw her arms around my neck, pulling me close. The familiarity of her embrace did nothing but annoy me to the point I wanted to make this encounter messy.

“I don’t understand,” she exclaimed, pulling back. “We buried you. How—”

I shook my head.

“Are you in trouble?” she asked, her brow furrowing in confusion. “Did Sebastian do something to hurt you? If you’re trying to hide, then I can help you. We can go to the police. My father has many connections.”

Sebastian? I didn’t know who that was, but it was irrelevant.

I let the knife I’d stashed up my sleeve slide through my hand until I grasped the hilt. Flicking the button, the blade clicked into place. Six inches of steel that only required one precisely aimed entry wound to kill instantly.

I allowed my expression to crumple, my bottom lip quivering. Let her think that this man had me running scared. Let her
sympathize
.

She stepped forward again, her trust sickening to my stomach.
Fool
. She had no idea she was about to embrace her death.

I raised my arms and hugged her, the knife going unnoticed by my prey.

“It’ll be okay, Lorrie,” she murmured as I positioned the tip of the blade at the base of her skull. “I can’t believe you’re here… I missed you so much.
I love you
.”

I pushed upward with all of my strength, the blade sinking through her flesh and into her brain like it was butter. Her entire body went limp, and I let her lifeless body fall to the floor face first. She didn’t even have time to take a startled breath before she suffered complete brain death.

Staring down at my first kill, I calculated the success rate of the hit in my mind, going over the plan and the execution. Perfection.

Wiping the blood from my knife on the woman’s shirt, I tucked the blade into my boot. I’d leave behind no trace that I was ever here, no prints, no surveillance, no DNA. Once her body was found, the police would scour the scene and come up blank. The murder of the blonde woman would forever be a cold case since ghosts couldn’t murder people.

It wasn’t until I was walking away that I realized I hadn’t uttered a single word the entire time I was in the gallery.

It was what I was bade to do by my father, so I complied. Silent, deadly, and no hesitation.

The blonde woman was only the first.

V
aughn held
onto me like I was slipping through his fingers.

“Lorelei—”

“Don’t,” I said. I didn’t want to hear his commiserations for the life I took. I knew I was meant to feel anguish now that I knew the blonde woman’s association to me, but I didn’t feel anything. That was the past, and the past was unchangeable.

“I have a house near the coast that we can use,” he murmured. “I’ve kept it secret all these years. No one will be able to find us there.”

I sighed, clutching onto his naked body like it was a life preserver.

“We need time,” he went on. “If we go out into the world now…”

He trailed off, but I knew the ending of that sentence. I knew it because I could feel the threads slipping through my fingers and dissolving into ash. I was coming apart. I was eroding. I was being remade into something new. Something unpredictable. Something dangerous to us both.

If we went out into the world now, I’d get us both killed.

“Where?” I asked, staring up into his blue eyes. Eyes that reminded me of the sea.

“Dover,” he replied.

Dover…by the sea. By the white cliffs. By the edge of the world.

“Yes,” I murmured, closing my eyes. “Take me to the edge.”