Opal (Rare Gems Series Book 4)

WCP

World Castle Publishing, LLC

Pensacola, Florida

Copyright ©
Kathi S. Barton 2014

Print ISBN:
9781629891606

eBook ISBN:
9781629891613

First Edition World Castle Publishing, LLC
, September 26, 2014

http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com

Licensing Notes

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.

Cover: Karen Fuller

Editor:
Maxine Bringenberg

Chapter 1

Opal was enjoying Paris.
She’d never traveled before outside of the United States, and was having so much fun she decided she might extend her vacation for another month. Who did she have back home to need her? Besides, she’d done really well at the show last month, and she was determined to have a good time before she had to go back and start making things again for the next one. Or, she thought, she’d open her own store. People really seemed to like what she did.

“Excusez-moi, mademoiselle? Savez-vous où je pourrais trouver l'Hôtel Marcus?”
It took her a few moments to try to translate what the man was asking her. But she beamed when she knew it.

“The Hotel Marcus is on Seventh near the Tea and Crumbles.”
She hoped that’s what she told him anyway when she repeated it in French. When he nodded and stepped around her, she let him go without another thought. People were so nice here.

When she was bumped hard from behind, she turned to say she was sorry. She’d been looking at her map again and sometimes would forget there were others moving around her. But the man said something else to her, and she had a feeling it wasn’t nice.
When she looked around, she realized that they were alone. Where had all the other people gone?

“You’ll come with me, my dear.”
Opal backed up and blindly put her map in her bag. “Running will do you no good. I’ve your scent now, and I plan to take you somewhere we can…talk.”

“No.
I don’t know who you are, but I’m not going anywhere with you.” She saw a second man coming out of the alley, and he didn’t look all that happy to see her either. “I’ll scream.”

“And who do you suppose would hear you? I’ve protected you from the tourists around here. It’s just you and me.
And I do not like to be told no.” The man was coming faster now, but he seemed to be so far away. Opal had a thought that the man in front of her had no idea about the one behind him, and decided that she didn’t want to go with either of them. Turning on her heel, she took off running until she hit a wall. No, not a wall, but another man.

Looking up into the face of the man that held her to him, she felt a little faint. Men like this one just didn’t touch women like her.
She tried to struggle away from him, but he snapped at her to be still.

“Sloan? What are you doing here? I thought you were firmly entrenched in the States.”
They didn’t seem to be friends, and the man from the alley confirmed it when he grabbed the first one around the throat with his massive arms.

“I think you know why I’m here. And you’ll leave her alone.
She’s not yours.” The man looked confused as Sloan continued. “You touch any of the women from this pack and I’ll personally tear your heart out.”

“As far as I know, this little morsel isn’t claimed.
And her virginal blood will make me feel like a man who had dined on the finest of meals and drank of the most delicious liquors. You would deny me that?” Sloan pushed her behind him, and she started to run again. But he grabbed her arm just as the man continued. “I will have her, Sloan. You’ve no right to keep me from her. A meal is a meal, as you well know.”

“You’ll leave her alone, as I have said, and she is mine.”
The man looked shocked, and Opal didn’t blame him. She no more belonged to him than she did to either of them. Before she could tell either of them she was her own person, Sloan pulled her in front of him so that she faced her attacker.

The air around them seemed to grow thick.
Opal opened her mouth to say something when she felt her hair being let down. Sloan moved his hand through her tumble of curls, and she felt her body light on fire. Nothing had ever made her feel this way before, and his touch was heating her up more.

When a moan spilled from her lips, she put her hand over Sloan’s to stop his movement to her breast. But he cupped her hand into his and moved it with his to cup her.
Her nipples hardened in her bra, and she moaned again.

“I’m going to taste you.” She nodded, not caring what he did so long as he didn’t stop what he was doing now.
“Come for me, Opal, while I taste you.”

Her hair was suddenly moved from her shoulder, and Sloan tilted her head.
Opal felt his cock harden against her. And when he rocked into her, she grabbed his arm. Christ, she was going to have a climax if he kept this up. Before she could protest, she felt his tongue touch her pounding pulse, and she tried to tighten her legs together to get some relief there. When she felt the sharp pain of his bite, Opal cried out. Not from pain but from the release that rocked through her entire body.

“Again,”
he told her in her mind. “Come for me again so that I can taste it.” She had no choice in the matter, and her body reacted violently to his command. She was still trembling with sated relief when he licked her again, sealing the wound he’d inflicted.

“There, she’s marked.
You’ll leave her alone from now on.” Opal found herself suddenly standing alone and Sloan near the man. It took her fuddled mind a few seconds to realize what he’d done to her.

He’d marked her.
Marked her so that the other man wouldn’t touch her. Staggering back a little, she heard someone say her name, but she was humiliated enough. She turned this time and took off running. Christ, what had just happened?

Sitting in her hotel room twenty minutes later, Opal tried her best to tell herself that it was all a dream.
She’d been hot and thirsty. Not drinking enough could make a person see and think things like that, she told herself. When she finally stood up and went to the bathroom, Opal stripped off all her clothes and stepped into the hot spray of the shower. Washing her entire body three times did not make her feel any less like it was anything but the truth. She’d been bitten and marked.

Getting out of the shower, she dried herself.
Opal was nearly through with her first list of things to pack up when she realized that she was leaving Paris today. The appeal of the place was no longer there, and she knew that she had to go home. When she stepped into the living room, she wasn’t overly surprised to see Sloan and the man from the alley sitting in her living room. Ignoring them, she picked up her things and took them back to the bedroom. There was no way she was going to acknowledge either of them. When the door clicked shut behind her, she stiffened but didn’t stop packing.

~~~

Sloan watched her fold her shirts and pants and put them into the suitcase. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say to her, because every line of her body told him she was mad and ready to tangle with him. And while she did, he had a feeling she was going to have nothing on her sisters when it came to having a temper. He cleared his throat, trying his best to soothe her, but she seemed to be very focused on what she was doing instead of him.

“I had to do something.
He was going to take you. And my biting you saved you from being his whore.” She said something, but he was sure he didn’t hear it correctly. “What did you just say?”

“I said, so now I’m yours. Your whore.”
Sloan felt his temper rise, but he calmed himself with the knowledge that she had no idea what he was to her. “I’m thinking I’d very much like for you to go away. I’m going…I’ve got a great deal to do today, and I want to be alone.”

“I have to talk to you.” She turned then, and he had only a second to realize he’d been wrong. She wasn’t just mad. She was spitting pissed off, and her wolf was coming.
But it was her beauty that took his breath away. Before he could say anything, she had him pinned to the wall and several feet off the floor.

“You’ll leave me alone or I’ll tear your throat out and spit in your face.”
He wanted to point out that she was very bad at verbal threats, but she was just fine in the scary department. But he had a feeling, verbal or not, she’d kill him if he didn’t do something quickly.

“I’m your mate.”
Her body seemed to freeze as he spoke through their link.
“I don’t want to be, but you’re mine until I can figure out a way to stop it.”

“You marked me.” He nodded without much movement. She had him held that tightly.
Then she tossed him across the room, and he landed on a chair, shattering it to splitters. He had a moment of worry that all the tales of being unable to harm one’s mate were untrue. But she was suddenly across the room, too, when Rufus knocked her away.

Sloan
was on the man in a heartbeat, and if Opal hadn’t have cried out, he might have killed him. When he turned to her, she had a piece of glass in her chest that she’d gotten when she hit the glass that had been sitting on the table. Christ, there was so much blood…he was at her side immediately.

“Get back.” Sloan ignored her and picked her up.
She weighed nothing. He wondered if he could convince her to put on some weight before he bit her again. Shutting down that thought because there wasn’t going to be any more biting, she cried out again when he tried to look at her wound. Pulling out the glass only made her bleed more, and he knew in that moment that there was no way they were walking away from this unscathed.

“You need to take my blood.”
The look on her face might have been funny if the situation wasn’t so serious. She was losing blood much too fast. He realized she’d cut into an artery. “Opal, you’re going to bleed to death if you don’t drink from me.”

“Fuck off.” When she tried to sit up again, he had Rufus hold her.
Sloan was actually afraid she’d shift. If she did with the amount of blood she’d lost, it might be her certain death. Tearing into his own wrist, he pressed it to her mouth and commanded her to drink. It wasn’t until she was unconscious that he was able to get her to take it. Christ, she was going to die if he didn’t do something quickly.

“You’re going to convert her if you give her much more.”
Rufus knew as well as he did that she was dying. “Might save her, but she’s going to kill you if you do this.”

He had no choice. Sloan either had to convert her to a vampire or she’d die. Neither was an option that he was thrilled with, but letting her die was out of the question.
Her family would most assuredly kill him if he did.

“Christ, she’s going to hate me for this.”
He leaned to her throat and bit her hard. Drinking from her as she took his blood was the only way now. When he felt her body begin to take his blood and use it to change her, he sealed the wound at her throat and pulled his wrist from her mouth.

“She’s gonna make it, I’m thinking.
Might be hard on her with her being so young and all, but I’m thinking you’ll pave the way for her. Too bad you lied to her about the mate thing.” Sloan stared at his friend until he realized the truth. “Mother fuck, she’s your mate? You just fucking converted your mate not an hour after you met her? She is going to kill you.”

Sloan ordered Rufus out of the room. His laughter was putting him on edge, and he was terrified enough as it was about this.
Looking down at the lovely woman on the bed, he wondered how he was going to tell Blair and the rest when he felt the man touch his mind.

“You fucking bastard.”
Sloan nodded his agreement at the man.
“I’m going to fucking murder you in your fucking tomb when you get here. I swear to Christ you’re going to wish for the sun when I’m finished with you.”