Vampire Dreams Revamped (A Sons of Navarus Prequel) (11 page)

As they lay still joined together, she
whispered, "Sire," and kissed him.

Her pet name for him made him smile. The
truth had always been that she was the one who held his heart and
soul captive, never the other way around. From that first moment he
met her, she'd been the one to save him. For as much as he was her
sire, she was his life.

"I love you, Arden. I always have."

Rolling him onto his back, she rested her
chin on his chest and looked up at him. "I love you and I can feel
your sadness tonight. What's wrong?"

Vasilije's call hours earlier to tell him
that Teagan had been staked weighed heavily on his mind. More and
more, the world they lived in had become a dangerous place, and his
desire to protect her clashed with her desire to be a part of the
modern world.

"Another one died. It's getting more
dangerous."

Arden rested her head on his chest. "I know.
I promise I'll be more careful. I know that's what concerns
you."

He stroked her hair, loving the feel of its
softness against his fingers, and prayed she would do as she said.
Even the thought of losing her felt like a stone crushing his
heart.

"Brandon, I plan on being with you for the
rest of time. It's one of the best things about being a vampire.
Don't worry. I'm always safer than you think. In fact, it's you I
worry about, Mr. Old Fashioned. You're the one who prefers to walk
everywhere."

Her teasing lightened his spirit, and when
she slid up his body to kiss him, he couldn't help but smile. She
always knew how to make him see the brighter side of life.

"I want you to promise me you'll be careful.
I don't know what I'd do if I lost you, Arden."

She kissed him on the tip of his nose and
joked, "You'd stay in this house until Vasilije forced you to leave
and attend one of his parties. You'd hate it and leave as soon as
you can. Am I close?"

"I'm not kidding, Arden."

"I'm not either. You'd hate it,
Brandon."

"All I'm saying is..." He stopped and
suddenly couldn't say the words. He couldn't say what he'd been
thinking for hours as he sat alone in his study. That if she were
to be taken from him, he couldn't go on.

Holding him close, she said the words that
would stay in his mind until the day he died. "I would never do
anything to hurt you, but I pray every day I'm taken first so I
never have to know a world without you. From the first time I felt
your lips on mine, you've been my world, Brandon. You'd go on
without me, you know that. Vasilije would force you to. But I have
only you."

A tear slid onto his shoulder and he
squeezed her tightly to him. She was wrong. No matter what Vasilije
or anyone else did, he wouldn't go on. What he felt for her would
be too much to bear without her next to him. He placed a kiss on
the top of her head and tried to put the thought out of his mind.
For now, they had each other and that's all that had ever
mattered.

To learn more about
Gabrielle and her writing, you can visit her at her website
http://www.gabriellebisset.com/
and follow her blog at
http://gbisset.blogspot.com/

Love’s Master

Masquerade

Stolen Destiny

Destiny Redeemed

Blood Avenged (Sons of Navarus #1)

Blood Betrayed (Sons of Navarus #2)

Vasilije looked around the room he’d just
appeared in, his body alert to any danger. He’d followed the sense
he’d gotten before Teagan’s spirit had been extinguished and knew
he was in his home in New Orleans. Everything about the place was
Teagan—from the Turkish cigarettes he smoked, to the bottle of
Guinness that sat on the coffee table, to the spicy, musky scent
that identified him as one of Vasilije’s vampires.

And the beautiful woman staring at him.

“Who did this?”

Big brown eyes stared back at him. “I don’t
know. It happened so fast. I left to grab another six pack and when
I got back, someone had a stake...”

Vasilije stood watching the stranger as she
cried, needing more information but forced to wait until there was
a break in her tears.

“Who are you?”

The woman dried her eyes and sniffled.
“Sasa. I was his girlfriend.”

At the use of the past tense, she began
tearing up again, but Vasilije didn’t have time for it. Whoever had
staked Teagan couldn’t have gone too far and any more time wasted
with Sasa’s crying may mean he’d lose the fucker.

He moved to leave and her hand caught his
arm.

“Please don’t go.”

She looked up at him with such a sad
expression for a moment he didn’t want to go. But he couldn’t let
Teagan’s murderer escape. Vasilije touched his hand to hers to
remove it from his arm, but all this did was make her squeeze
tighter.

“Please,” she begged in a voice that matched
the pathetic look in her eyes. “Don’t leave me alone now.”

The urge to tear his arm from her hold and
leave her to her misery spiked in him, but it was overruled by that
small part of him that understood her sadness.

“Fine. Follow me. And keep up. And if I tell
you to do something, do it. Do you understand?”

For a second, she looked surprised and
Vasilije thought he was going to hear a string of irritating
questions. None came, though, and when he turned to head out the
door, she followed silently.

At the street, he stopped and inhaled
deeply, hoping to sense something that would help him find Teagan’s
killer. Nothing came. But there’d been something in the
apartment...something that he was sure he recognized from long
ago.

Eyes closed, he let his other senses take
over, but he got nothing. “What did he look like?”

“I don’t know. It was so quick. Blond, I
think.”

Vasilije snapped his head to the left to
look at her. “Man or woman?”

Instantly, Tatiana’s threat repeated in his
head.
Now I take something you cherish.
Had she staked one
of his vampires in retaliation over Alex? Vasilije doubted even
Tatiana would stake a vampire herself, but she wasn’t above having
someone else do it.

“Man.”

That didn’t mean Tatiana wasn’t behind
Teagan’s murder. And who was this woman who claimed to be Teagan’s
girlfriend?

“Did you see which direction he ran?”

Sasa shook her head sadly. “No, I’m sorry.
Are you his sire?”

“How do you know about that?” he asked, more
suspicious than just a minute earlier.

“Teagan was a vampire, and you just look
like a sire would. That’s what you call them, right?”

As she spoke, Vasilije studied her under the
streetlight’s glow, still unsure she was who she claimed to be. Not
bad looking, she seemed like someone Teagan could like. He’d always
preferred brunettes with big eyes and bigger tits, and although she
didn’t measure up to porn star level, she still had a nice body. He
could see her as Teagan’s girlfriend.

“Yeah, I’m his sire and right now I need to
find the fuck who killed one of my vampires,” he said looking down
the street.

“What’s your name?”

Turning to look at her, he raised one
eyebrow. “You’re a curious one, aren’t you, pet?”

“Well, I think I should know your name if
we’re going to work together to find Teagan’s killer.”

Vasilije continued to work on getting any
sense of who he was looking for, but nothing came to him.
Frustrated, he’d need time to think and find his way around this
new place before he could search for the killer, and the last thing
he needed was a weepy woman tagging along.

“Uh, no. We’re not going to be working
together to find anything. Just point me to the nearest place I can
get something to eat and I’ll be on my way.”

In a second, her hands were back on his arm
and squeezing. “Please let me help. I want to see the person who
did this brought to justice.”

Justice? Vasilije smiled at the idea of
justice, sure she would be appalled by what he intended to do to
Teagan’s killer. Humans were always more squeamish than he thought
they should be, considering their own history.

“How long were you and Teagan together?”

“Why?”

Vasilije noticed her defensiveness
immediately. Her body language screamed she was hiding
something.

“You just seem very attached. That’s
all.”

Sasa shifted her weight between her feet. “I
was. I mean, we were. Attached. And even though we had problems, we
were trying to work things out.”

“Problems?”

A sheepish look came over her face. “I
forgave him and we’d have worked things out...”

Sasa’s lip quivered for just a second, and
Vasilije was afraid she’d begin crying again. Teagan hadn’t changed
in his new home, it seemed. A notorious ladies’ man, his wandering
eye had been the reason he’d moved three thousand miles away from
the only place he’d ever called home. Obviously, that relationship
hadn’t survived since Sasa stood next to him all dewy eyed over his
death.

“I see.”

“It’s not like that. It doesn’t matter what
you think anyway. I just owe it to him to find out who did
this.”

Vasilije smiled at Sasa’s words. She was
probably completely unaware that the one she’d caught her boyfriend
with was likely one of many. Such blind devotion.

“Love, I don’t think you understand what’s
going to happen when I find the guy who did this. My idea of
justice and yours aren’t the same, I guarantee you.”

Sasa’s eyes grew wide. “Why? Is there some
kind of ritual you plan to perform when you punish him?”

Vasilije’s fangs snapped into position and
he grinned to show her the weapons he’d use to punish the
motherfucker who killed one of his own.

“No ritual. Just these and all the blood I
can handle.”

The shock at his words was written all over
her face. “You plan to drain them?”

“My kind of justice, love. So if you plan to
stick around, you know what to expect.”

Sure he’d frightened her enough to change
her mind, he began walking toward the nearest main road. Before he
could begin searching for Teagan’s killer, he had to find something
to eat. Then he’d use Teagan’s house while he was here since it
would be set up for someone like him and work out of there.

“Will you bite me?”

Vasilije turned to look at her standing
there staring at him, the fear gone from her eyes, replaced by
something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

Curiosity? Desire?

“Only if you want me to, love.”

As if she’d expected him to say yes and when
she heard a different answer her mind instantly moved on to
something else, Sasa marched past him, waving him on to follow
her.

“Follow me. I’ll take you where you can get
something to eat and I can get a drink.”

Vasilije grimaced at the idea that this
stray woman was now giving him orders. He should have gone with his
first instinct and left her. Maybe Teagan had cared for her,
though, and would want her to help him. He owed him at least that
much.
© 2011 Gabrielle Bisset